YouTube Transcription#4 “An Idiot Abroad”
Introduction: “An Idiot Abroad” is a British TV program directed by comedian Ricky Gervais, featuring Karl Pilkington, who is not an actor or comedian, but actually a radio producer. Gervais met him while making his own radio show and enjoyed Pilkington’s simple, honest and frank opinions and comments about everything. Gervais had the idea to send Pilkington to many countries, knowing that he wouldn’t really appreciate the various cultures, but also knowing that his opinions of them would seem very funny to others.
Here is part of the episode when he visited Japan:
Host: Please follow me.
Karl: Where were all these people when the mopping needed doing? (He cleaned the floor earlier)
He said “Do you want a cup of tea?” I thought, “I’ve got to get to bed early, because I’m up early, to climb a mountain.” I thought, “How long can it take to have a cup of tea?” It’d be nice to have a cup of tea; I’m a big tea fan… It took ages! There’s no way they could get a job in a cafe, because the queue would be horrendous.
Host: So this face is facing to me. This aspect is facing to me.
Karl: Bow… Thanks for letting me have my tea before you. Alright, and then… shift it over here.
In a way I quite like the way they made a big deal out of something that’s so simple, because I always do everything in a rush, me. They’ve made a proper moan out of something that we just do without even thinking about it. Sometimes I drink my tea, I don’t even realise I’ve drunk it, it’s just, sort of, gone.
I have, erm, Twinings English Breakfast. Do you know Twinings? Yeah?
But even though I can’t speak their language, we had a connection there. We both like a cup of tea.
Yorkshire tea. It’s really, like…(gesture of bitter taste)… there’s earl gray. Not keen on earl gray. You see we have tea bags. Liptons? Liptons is very good. I haven’t got any other tea stories.
And that’s what tea does… it brings people together.
Expressions used:
“I’m up early” – we often use the simple present for something in the future that cannot be changed; something we have to do.
“I’m a big tea fan.” – We use “a fan” not only for things like football teams, singers, actors etc., but anything we are very keen on.
“It took ages!” – “ages” means ” a very long time”.
“Horrendous” is not only connected to “horror” but is used for any general situation of “a very big problem”.
“Shift” is a very casual word meaning “move”.
“They’ve mad a proper moan” – I don’t really understand his usage here. It may be a Manchester dialect (Karl’s home), though the context suggests it means “a big deal”, or “something major”.