Show 344 Thursday 12 April

Watch today’s show at YouTube or BlipTV.

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

Today’s play is Macbeth.

At the start of the play a Scottish guy called Macbeth has been fighting in a war.
And his title is Thane of Glamis. A Thane is some kind of rank in that military system.
Macbeth and another guy called Banquo were successful in leading the troops in this battle. And on the way home, they are walking along, and they meet three witches.
And the witches call Macbeth three things.
They call him: Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor, and the third wish says he will be King hereafter.
And they say that Banquo will be the father to kings.
After this happens, Macbeth actually gets promoted by the king to Thane of Cawdor. And so he starts thinking “mmm, maybe the witches were right. Maybe I’m going to become king.”
He tells his wife, Lady Macbeth, about this. And she decides they should kill the king.
So when the king comes and stays at their castle, Macbeth kills him. And then he blames two servants and kills them too. The king has two sons and they escape because they are scared and suspicious of Macbeth.
And then Macbeth becomes king.
But Macbeth is worried about what the witches said about Banquo being a father to kings ... so he decides to kill Banquo and his son. And Banquo is killed but his son escapes.

And then Lady Macbeth starts feeling guilty about what they did. And Macbeth gets all paranoid and goes to see the witches again ... and they say beware Macduff so Macbeth decides to kill Macduff’s family.

Anyway, eventually the king’s sons come back with Macduff to get revenge and they kill Macbeth. And Lady Macbeth is already dead because she committed suicide.

One of the most famous soliloquies in the play is when Macbeth finds out that his wife is dead.
A soliloquy is when a character says his (their) thoughts aloud

At the end of this soliloquy Macbeth says this about life:
It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing

So now you know what the meaning of life is.

And finally a famous line from Lady Macbeth.
She feels so guilty about the murders that she goes mad and one day when she is sleepwalking she looks at her hands and she thinks she has blood on her hands and she says:
Out, damn'd spot! out, I say!

STICK NEWS

Kia ora, in Stick News today an American TV network has stopped broadcasting a show after a host made insulting comments about basketball players.

Don Imus is a 67-year-old talk show host.
He often calls people nasty names such as:
fat, pill-popping loser
gutless, lying weasel
fat pig
cantankerous old fool
bowtie-wearing pussy
On the 4th of April he called the members of a women's basketball team nappy-headed hos.
A ho is derogatory slang for a prostitute.
In some countries a nappy is what a baby wears.
But in the United States nappy is an adjective meaning frizzy and used to describe the hair of people of African descent.
The term nappy-head can be used as an insult.
Many people were unhappy about Don Imus’ comment including many sponsors who decided to pull their ads from the show and MSNBC, who has stopped airing the program.

And that was Stick News for Thursday 12th of April.
Kia Ora.

the snow report

There’s still quite a few of these big piles of snow lying around town.

conversations with sarah
#213 Do you think he is racist?

Step 1: Repeat Tim’s lines.
Step 2: Read Tim’s lines and talk to Sarah.

Tim What do you think about what that guy said?

Sarah The nappy-head comment?

Tim Yeah.

Sarah Well I’ve never heard that word before so it doesn’t sound bad to me. But if it’s offensive in America then, yeah, he shouldn’t say it.

Tim But radio announcers say stupid things all the time.

Sarah True. It doesn’t mean they should get away with it though.

Tim Do you think he is racist?

Sarah I don’t know. He might have been trying to be funny. But I don’t think racist comments are funny.

Tim And some people do?

Sarah Yeah, they do. Even YouTube editiors ... they feature videos with racist humour which I don’t understand. I don’t find it funny. But each to their own, I guess.

Links

Today's news.

Today's snow report and questionanswer BGM
artist: Jampy
album: Nghzk!
track: Trying To Play Some Jazzy Blues
from: Napoli, Italy
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site