Chatterbox #345 – Interview with Michael Lavers

Hello everybody and welcome to another edition of the Qlips English podcast. How is it going? I hope you're doing well. Thank you for clicking play and joining me here for another English lesson. In today's episode, we have a very special guest, Michael Lavers from the Level Up English Podcast, joins me to talk, well, all about him.

Actually Michael reached out to me and asked me if I would like to appear as a guest on his podcast and I thought I would reciprocate the favor. Now reciprocate, this is a difficult word, but it means to Respond in an equal way. So he invited me, and then I invited him. I reciprocated the request.

Michael said that was a good idea. And so we actually got together and recorded three episodes. One where Michael interviews me, and you can hear that over on his podcast, and I'll put the link in the description. for you in case you want to check that out. And of course, I highly recommend that you do. And then the second episode where I interview him, and you'll hear that interview today. Guys, we talk about a whole range of interesting things.

Michael is a scholar and a gentleman, and it was great chatting with him. Our conversation begins by talking about his upbringing in England. And then he actually is based in Thailand right now. So we talk a little bit about Thailand. We talk about one of his hobbies, which is cycling. And I put him through the ringer with a rapid fire.

Question series about life in England and the UK. So I hope you guys will enjoy the interview. That is what you'll hear today. And then next month we're going to release. the third episode that we recorded together. And that'll be a collab uh between the two of us. It will appear on Michael's podcast. It will appear here on Qlips. And we just had a conversation about

things we wish we knew earlier. And we go back and forth uh talking about some of those things. So stay tuned for that episode coming up next month. But for today, we're just going to chat with Michael and get to know him. As always, as is the tradition here at QLIPS, when we have a special guest on, then the study guide is completely free for everyone. So it doesn't matter if you're a Clips member or not, anybody can access the study guide for this episode.

And it includes an interactive transcript, detailed vocabulary explanations, and examples of some of the cool vocabulary that you'll hear me and Michael use while we're talking. It also includes a quiz and some questions that you can use for speaking practice and writing practice. So definitely check out the guide, especially if you're not a CULUPS member. This is a great opportunity to check out and

test the learning materials that we give our members here at Qlips. And yeah, members get not only the study guides for each and every episode, not only the interactive transcripts for each and every episode, but also a whole other great Hosts of benefits and bonuses such as ad free audio, such as our member only series, the fluency files. such as our weekly speaking classes. And we have at least three speaking classes each and every week that CLUPS members are welcome to join.

as many or as few of as you would like. So if you'd like to join the Q Loops community as a member, we'd love to have you. Just visit our website, QLoops.com. You can find out all the details and sign up for an affordable price today. And of course, a huge thank you to all the QLIPS members out there for your support. Guys, we couldn't do QLIPS without you. So thank you so much.

Alright, I've been rambling on enough here. Let's get to the interview and welcome Michael to the conversation. Guys, I hope you enjoy this one. Here we go.

All right, now we are joined everyone by a very special guest, Michael from the Level Up English podcast. Michael, welcome to Qlift's. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you very, very much for having me. I'm really happy to be here. Thank you, Andrew. Yeah. So Michael, we're going to spend maybe the next 20, 25 minutes or so just chatting and getting to know each other a little bit and especially introducing you to our listeners.

I think a lot of our listeners probably are familiar with you already. And so maybe you're a man who needs no introduction. I'm not sure, but there might be some listeners who. uh are meeting you and encountering you for the first time. So let's dig in and uh maybe we could go back and start at the beginning of your life and Could you tell us where you're from, where where you were born, your hometown, that that kind of thing?

Yeah, so I was I was born on on a cloudy morning. No, I I won't go back that far. Um I'm I'm from England. Some of you might be able to tell by the accent. Uh although I'm technically from a a smaller region called Cornwall, which is in the southwest of England, and I I'm fairly proud of this because it you know, as as proud as you can be as from from uh you know, where you're from. But it it's a Celtic region, so it's a little bit like Wales or Scotland, except it's not

really a separate country anymore. Uh but yeah it's a Celtic region so that the culture and the language is a little bit different. The accent is a quite distinct down there as well. And I think it's just a beautiful part of the of the country. So I have very warm feelings about Cornwall. Um happy to answer any more questions about that as well.

And yeah, I mean since growing up in Cornwall, I have also lived in uh London for a couple years. Uh that Around about the time, maybe a little bit before when I started teaching online, uh before the pandemic, a few years before I was teaching online, then I started the Level Up English podcast right

I think just a few months before the pandemic hit, in twenty nineteen, I guess that was. Been going every week since then. I I really love to do it. It's the main thing I do these days to trying to help uh English learners level up their English ability. And Yeah, now I'm living in Thailand. So that's the the most recent chapter of my life. I've been here for almost three years now. So that's that's a a a brief overview, but let me know if there's anywhere else you want to dive into there.

I wanna go back to Cornwall because the name of the city is pretty interesting. Do you know what the origin is? Like why the place is called Cornwall? I really should know this. Uh I feel like I did know this at one point and I've totally forgotten. Um I don't think it's related to corn or walls. Uh okay. Okay. That's what I was wondering. If there was like uh maybe an old uh fortress wall or if there were some corn farms or something.

I think the original name, like back in, you know, medieval times perhaps, I think it was called Little Wales or something like that. Uh so Wa Wales is the country on the the west side of Britain. uh Celtic region. Cornwall is right underneath Wales, across across the sea. And yeah, it used to be called Little Wales. I think it was Little Wales. I'm I might have to double check that later. Um and it's maybe changed over time to Cornwall, but I need to brush up on my history there.

And you said it was a a Celtic region. I I'm kind of interested in that because my mom's side of the family is all from Scotland. And so I I have some Celtic uh uh a little Celtic origin story, I guess. in in my life story. But I'm wondering you too, are do you know like your family's history? Are you related to that Celtic roots of the place or do you know anything about that?

funny you should say that because just about two weeks ago I got really into ancestry, which is you know looking looking into where your family's from and the the family tree, how far it goes back. You know, there are certain websites where you can look into this. I I managed to track my family back five hundred years. Uh so I I could see all their names and everything, who they got married to for five hundred years, and that's when it kind of fizzled out. It kind of uh I lost Uh

Ah, I lost track of people after then. I I guess there weren't many records. But yeah, for for that length of time, basically my family lived in the same kind of village for for 500 years. So I presume I kind of uh corn it kind of Celtic, uh you know, maybe It is always hard to say in the UK because of course we've had lots of in invasions and things like that. There was the ten sixty six where you've got a lot of maybe French coming over and stuff, so it's kind of murky, not clear.

But yeah, maybe it doesn't really matter, does it? It's interesting though. It it's it's cool that you can go back and and find your ancestry for five thousand or five hundred years. That's pretty amazing. I guess you have deep roots in that place and Yeah, I've been to the UK once before in my life and I only spent a very brief time in England, unfortunately, just in London, and then I spent the rest of the time in Scotland.

Uh maybe you could describe what kind of place Cornwall is for our listeners. Is it like a big city? Is it more like a small village? And I don't know, is there something well what's the interesting part of Cornwall, would you say? Cornwall is a county, which is like a like a region um of of the UK, and it's it's the most southwestern point, it's like a little sliver. like right on the end, so it has a very long coastline because it it you know, it's surrounded by sea mostly.

Um so w it's very famous for beaches. It's got a lot of really beautiful beaches. It's one of one of the warmest places in in the on the island. Um so yeah, very nice beaches, very good surfing if you like surfing and water sports as well. And More inland, it doesn't really have any big cities. It's not well known for cities. Even if you go to the biggest.

settlement, the biggest city in Cornwall, it still kind of feels like a town. So it's like lots of quaint villages, countryside places, um, lots of fields. You know, it's that that that kind of vibe, you know, so quite peaceful. And in fact a lot of people from m you know, further up north in England will come down to Cornwall on holiday'cause it has a more holiday vibe, I would say.

That's so fascinating. I don't really think of surfing and England together, but I guess you could, right? Like why not? So Can be cold. Yeah, you'd probably want a wet suit. Especially if you're if it's not in the summer, yeah.

Okay, so now you you left the UK, you're in Thailand, you said you've been there for three years, and so I guess that's like night and day difference. right, between uh back home and Bangkok's like this big, vibrant, very warm, very uh exciting city. So Maybe you could tell us why you moved to Bangkok, what you're doing there, all those kinds of things.

Yeah, but I I love that expression, like a night and day difference. It really is very stark, very big difference. Peaceful countryside to a huge big city um that's very chaotic, I would say. And I love both. I I think maybe because I was brought up in the countryside, I'm kind of drawn to the chaos in some way. Uh so that that could be a reason why I like it here. But Yeah, the the the reasons why I came here, uh I I traveled quite a lot around Asia uh you know in my twenties.

I I spent one month in Chiang Mai, t a kind of city in the north of Thailand, and I really fell in love with it, like the food, the people, the climate, the culture, everything was amazing. I I don't know if you've been to Thailand, but yeah, amazing. Unfortunately I've never been to Thailand. It's kind of wild. I've been to other places in Southeast Asia, but never Thailand. It's only a couple hour flight from where I am, maybe three or four hours, so. I gotta get there one day. Yeah.

Yeah. Next on your list. Yeah. But yeah, I mean w when I visited I I I'm I'm sure you've had this before where you're like, Yeah, I could live here. I could definitely live here. You have that feeling after just being a few weeks in a place. And a few years later, I I was kind of it was still in the back of my mind, but it wasn't like a big goal of mine. And then actually my wife had a job opportunity, so it could either be Hong Kong or Bangkok.

and I think both sounded really exciting to me. Uh th this was after COVID, the pandemic as well. So we were kinda fed up of being stuck in the UK for for that period. And yeah, I just thought Bangkok is is cheaper, right? So that that's a a good reason. So that that's kind of how we ended up here in the end, just um mostly for the escaping the UK and also maybe a little bit cheaper as well. So that yeah among many other reasons I would say. Okay, awesome.

Now, one of my co-hosts here at QLoops, Cassie, she, well, she's current she's from the States, but she lives in South Korea, uh, just like me. But uh before that, she was in Thailand. She spent uh a couple of years in Bangkok. And so I got to know a little bit about the country just from chatting with her. And she said that the Thai language was extremely difficult for her to try and learn.

Uh, which was surprising to me because she's a pretty good Korean speaker. So I thought that she would be able to pick up Thai very quickly, but she said even the alphabet was a challenge. Uh, I know you must be interested in languages since you're doing uh an English podcast. What is your experience like with the Thai language? Have you tried to learn it or pick some up at all? How and how is that going?

Yeah, th this this is a bit of an awkward topic for me. Um before moving here I was learning um I had been learning uh Chinese and Japanese, already two very hard languages, and You know, i ideally it would be great to move to one of those countries. It would make more sense. I I would have to not learn as much, right?

But it just ended up that we that we uh moved here, so I kind of decided to start learning Thai a bit, but because I didn't know how long I'd be living here, I didn't know how much I should commit, how much effort I should put into it.

So I have started learning, but it's been very slow. Um the alphabet is definitely a challenge because there seems to be a lot of letters that kind of have the same sound or very similar sounds. Uh I I think it's it's a little bit like in English, you might have a C and an S, but they they they both can be Sir. Uh lots of that going on. And um I think one thing that makes it much harder than Korean, I guess, is it's a tonal language. I think there are five tones.

So if you use the wrong tone, you say something totally different. And that's something that I'm I'm really struggling with. But I mean at the moment I can I can order a coffee, I can ask for directions. I'm trying my best to learn phrases that I need in my daily life. Like I do a lot of walking or cycling. So I learnt the phrase dead end, for example. So I can say, is this a dead end? Can I go here? Very important for Yeah. Depends it depends what you do in in your daily life, isn't it? Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. Okay.

So I wanted to get to this. I'm glad that you brought up cycling because I love cycling. It's uh I would say one one of like the the finest things you can do in life is just ride a bicycle. Like I absolutely love it. And I'm happy to hear that you're a cyclist as well. We are chatting a little bit before we hit the record button here and you're actually going to be visiting Korea and doing a really exciting ride in Korea in the near future. So I'm so excited for you uh to be able to do that.

But why don't we dig in a little bit and talk about cycling? Maybe you could tell us uh what kind of riding you like, what kind of bike you ride. I don't want to get too geeky about it, but maybe you could just tell us a little bit about this hobby that you have. Well, that's probably just as well because I'm I'm not the right person to get geeky with with this kind of stuff. But but for me s I I think people have different reasons to do cycling and and you know similar sports, right?

For me, I think exploration is always number one. Um some people it's you know fitness is the main goal or whatever else, but for me it's exploring like I'd rather prioritize just seeing new places and stuff like that. And I feel like cycling is a great way to do that, right? Because

Walking is too slow, like, unless you're just going in a city. Like if you want to go from town to town, walking's gonna take years. Um driving, you're kind of missing everything or on the train, everything zooming by out the window, you're not really experiencing where you are.

But yeah, I think cycling is that perfect middle ground where you are Uh you're able to stop quickly or easily and see somewhere and you're you know, if there's a boring area you can cycle past quickly and get you know get uh get past it. So for me that's my main reason. Uh when when I'm in Bangkok, I've got a little folding bike, nothing very special that I I use just to get around. I can carry over the potholes and over the bridges and stuff like that.

And you know, if I'm actually that that's the only bike I have. So if I'm doing a a longer biking trip, like in South Korea, I I'd try just to rent one when I'm there so I don't have to worry about shipping it over Okay, so is that what you're planning to do is just rent a site uh bicycle over here then? Yes, yeah. Th there's a few good companies actually that specialise in that, where you can cycle across the country and once you get to Busan, you pay a bit extra and they ship it back to Seoul.

Um it's kind of a a a well w what what can we say? A well oiled machine. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. That's awesome. I one of the things that I love about living in Korea is they have all of these really convenient services. And that's just one example. Like of course there's a company that gives you a bike at the start and then ships it back. uh to you at the end. Like that's very Korean, so I think that's great and

Yeah, you'll have to give me your full review for for listeners who don't know. There's this amazing cycling path that starts at the the northwest part of South Korea and ends in the southeast. It just goes across the whole country. So Yeah, give me your review when you finish, Michael. Yeah, I'd love to. Yeah. I mean my understanding is that it basically follows a river the whole way. And it's I I think because of that it's mostly quite flat and it

I I I think m I might be t a bit a bit wrong, but I think most of it is dedicated cycle paths. So not not cycling next to big trucks and cars and stuff. So if that's true I'll be I'll be very happy. Yeah, I think most of it is protected. Maybe ninety five percent is just totally away from any vehicles other than other bicycles, so

It's pretty safe. I I heard there's one big mountain that you have to climb in the middle, but other than that, I believe it's pretty flat as well. So you should be in for for a nice ride. And actually I wanted to ask you about that because Uh I know that Thailand is sort of famous for having chaotic traffic and you said you like to ride your bike around in Bangkok and explore. Is it sketchy at all to do that? Or is it safe or what's that like riding in the big city?

Yeah, that that's a really good question. I think it can definitely be sketchy. I feel like I I wouldn't recommend it for someone who's just landed in Thailand for the first time. I feel like you have to learn a little bit about how the traffic works. Um, it's definitely chaotic, but I do think there is more What what's the right word? More um

I I've I've lost the word now, but it's it's less chaotic than it it might seem at first. There's some you know, people might uh not obey the rules or drive on the wrong side of the road, but you could have understand why and then you learn to expect it in the end. And yeah, I mean there are some big roads that I will avoid for safety reasons.

But you kind of learn uh oh, I I've learnt over over time that, you know, oh, this is a shortcut or I can go down this residential street and I can it's longer but it's safer. Um Yeah, so I think generally residential streets are fine, they're not very busy, it's just those big main roads in the middle which you probably want to avoid.

Um but also again I'm definitely not a history expert, but my understanding of the history of Bangkok is it is it used to be built around canals. So before there was a train system, before cars were a thing, I guess. People would travel around the city uh via boat on the canals. Many of these are man-made canals.

And these canals of course still exist today and many of them have quite precarious, quite you know there's there's not there's often no like guardrails, but they're like little like pavements or like raised platforms where you can walk or cycle.

So you know, you have to be careful not to veer off into the water, but th these are really great ways to get around. Once you know where to find them, you can get around the whole city b pretty much on these like small little canal paths and it's it's very peaceful.

Oh, okay. Awesome. Well, one day I hope I can check it out. I don't know if I'm brave enough to cycle i in a foreign country like you are, a country that I've never really visited before, but um it sounds amazing. So who knows? We'll see. If you come here we'll we'll do it together. I'll I'll show you how to

Okay. Okay. Okay. It's a deal. Thank you. Uh Michael, I also wanted to ask you about your podcast, the Level Up English podcast. I think uh it would be a great fit for many of our listeners and I would highly encourage our listeners to go over and check out your website and listen to your episodes. I think there's a lot of crossover between what we do, so Could you introduce the podcast and and what you do over there?

Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. I I I think it there's a lot of crossover, so hopefully it it's useful for some people. And hmm. I suppose in the early days I was very focused on this is how to learn English, here's some grammar rules, and it was much more like structured, I suppose. But yet these days, you know, as they do, as podcasts will do if you do them for so many years, it's kind of evolved into something a bit different.

It's quite casual. I try to keep it casual. I try to show what I would call real English, where I'm not making my voice sound too unnatural or you know slowing down too much. Yeah, I just generally pick a topic that I'm interested in, uh that I like I want to explore more, or something that I'm passionate about, and I explore that in an episode.

And while doing so I might share some useful expressions or vocabulary. I'll do my best to explain as I go along. And yeah, I think I think the main idea is probably very similar to you, it's just giving people who uh

Who who wants some I I guess they're too busy maybe. They might be too busy to learn English, sit down at the desk but they can listen on the way to work or something like that. And um yeah, I hopefully I'm giving a bit of motivation as well as showing them uh you know new vocab or or how to learn, you know. Awesome. Yeah. It's so important when you're learning a language, just to get the language into your head, right? You need to do

just overwhelming amounts of input. And so the more opportunities that people who are learning English have to do that, that's great. Here at Cubelips, you know, I feel like I'm Uh working all the time to make great content and great episodes and lessons for everyone, but we still only do two episodes per week. And so uh, you know, people need more than two episodes. They need more content. And so it's great to expose yourself to lots of different speakers, lots of different

styles of English. And so yeah, I would highly encourage our listeners to go and check out your podcast as well. By the way, how many episodes do you do per week? Th this is what I was thinking of. Like I think a lot of people really may maybe just they're not aware of how much effort it takes to make a podcast. It feels it looks like quite a simple thing, but as I'm sure you know

It it there's a lot of work that can go into it, even a random just like sit-down and talk episode. So because of that, I just do one a week and these Can be, you know, up to an hour, maybe so that they can be quite long sometimes. But yeah, just one episode a week is my current uh That's great. Yeah. No, I think as language learners, I know with me learning Korean, I'm greedy. Like I just want every day when I wake up, I want to put it in my AirPods and I want to listen to like some great

new conversation or episode in the Korean language that will help me. And um yeah, it's not available. And I think listeners who are learning English, they want the same thing, right? They want these like great QLIPS episodes each and every day. But it does take a lot of time and effort, like doing everything producing as you will know. So yeah, one episode a week I think is totally reasonable.

And yeah, so guys, you can have up to three episodes per week. If you combine Qlips with the level up podcast, level up English podcast, then uh that's better, better than just one.

Um, okay, Michael, before we wrap up here, I I don't want to take up too much of your time, but before we do, I had some rapid fire questions that I wanted to ask you. Are you up for some quick rapid fires? Okay, I'll try my best. I'm nervous, but let's do it. I hate put putting people on the spot, but uh if if you wanna pass, just pass. I I wrote these are all about the UK as well, because I know so many of our listeners are curious about

what life is like in in the UK and the culture. And of course, it's the birthplace of English. And so these are all kind of UK-centered Questions. Sometimes people ask me these questions and I can try my best to answer them, but I I'm not from there, so I don't know as well as you. Um, mostly about pop culture. So um I'm wondering, what is your favorite all-time UK TV show?

Ooh This is funny. I again I'll try not to ramble with I know it's a it's a it's a a quick one. Uh I tend to watch much, much more American shows than than British shows, so that's kind of ironic. Uh the one that popped into my head, which I remember is definitely British, is one called Humans. Have you heard about this? No, I haven't seen or heard of humans.

Ooh, it I haven't seen it in a few years, so my my memory's rusty, but it's essentially it's kind of like sci-fi, but realistic sci fi. So it feels like it could happen. And it's kind of about uh robots or AI and sentience, um, maybe fighting for their for their right to be treated equally uh to humans. Uh I need to re watch it actually, but yeah, vr really good one. I I if you like sci fi, I I recommend humans.

Okay, humans. I'm making a note here. Sounds right down my alley, so I'm gonna check that out. Humans. Okay, good. How about a band? Do you have a favorite band from Britain? From Britain. I same as before, like most of my bands are not from from Britain. Uh I guess I'm a traitor to my own country. Yeah. Well you could always just go with the Beatles, right? That's a safe one. Um I don't like them though, I really don't. That's I know it's controversial but it's just it's not my cup of tea.

Okay, okay. That that's really tough, yeah. I listen to a lot of metal, heavy metal, and a lot of that is American, French as well, Swedish, that kind of stuff. I Is Iron Maiden from England? I think they are, but again that's that's not exactly what I listened to. It's a little bit before my time, maybe, but Yeah, they're pretty old.

But yeah, that that uh i it's a hard one for me to answer, but my favorite band these days is um maybe Godjura, which is a French metal band. They're they're amazing, but I know that's not really relevant to the question. No, that's all that's all right. Okay, this one you for sure have an answer to, and it is your favorite. From Britain. Favourite snack or favorite food. There's gotta be some Yeah.

So so m this I I I thought about this. When I go back to the UK, what's the first thing that I will have? A lot of people will make fun of me, maybe you will as well for this. Uh this is beans on toast. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Some people in Canada eat it and so to be honest, I think it's delicious as well. Oh nice. I wouldn't say I wouldn't say no to it, for sure.

I don't know how it is in Canada. In the US I've had what we call baked beans and they're very sweet. So it's different than the ones we have in England. Uh but yeah, in England just toast, butter beans on top and maybe some like cheese or something else like that on the top. It is amazing. And the beans are the beans that are in a tomato sauce, right? Yes, yeah. Salty tomato sauce, yeah. Sure, not sweet. Okay. Got it. Good.

Um, two more for you. Um, favorite British tradition. Is there I mean, such a long history in the UK And uh there's gotta be some kind of tradition or culture that you think is maybe unique or cool or special. Anything that pops into your mind. Yeah. I mean th this is something I I think we don't do that well because we're such a multicultural country in many ways. I feel like we've lost a lot of our

traditions. Uh we don't do many of them anymore. But one of the main ones that we still do, which is unique to the UK, is has a few names, maybe Guy Fork's Day or Fireworks Night, Bonfire Night. Um have you heard about this before? Yeah, I think uh growing up in Canada we learn about it as being the the British equivalent of Halloween. I mean we also have Halloween, but it's similar to that, yeah. Okay. So maybe you could tell us about it and tell me about it.

Yeah, in short, I won't bore with too much detail but in short... Around about 400 years ago, I believe, there was a man called Guy Fawkes who wanted to assassinate the king. Uh, for religious reasons, I guess. And he had a plan to blow up the Houses of Parliament. This is the the the buildings where you have Big Ben, very famous buildings in London. And he put barrels of gunpowder underneath the the the building.

And he you know his plan was to blow it up, kill everyone, kill the king. And right before he could do that, he was foiled, he was caught by the guards, and hanged, maybe? Executed somehow. So he basically in short he failed with his uh assassination attempt. And ever since then, we kind of celebrate the fact that he failed. We we commemorate that day by having lots of fireworks, which I suppose represents the explosion that would have happened.

I don't know the logic with that. But also we burn an effigy. An effigy is a uh like a dummy, uh a fake person of Guy Fawkes. It sounds a bit barbaric, a bit kind of crazy, but we basically have a you know, maybe he's made of straw or something like that, and we chuck him in the fire and burn him on this huge, huge bonfire. So that that's a big part of the festival. Wow, okay. Uh very interesting day. When is that celebrated?

It's the fifth of November. There's actually a little rhyme that we learn in school which is remember the remember remember the fifth of November. So everyone knows that in the UK, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay, very good. Guy Fox Day. Nice. Last one for you, last rapid fire. Um what is your favorite That's popular in the UK. Hmm. I'm beginning to think I'm just not very British culturally.

I I I d I don't really like team sports. I'm not really a team player when it comes to sports. I I I don't I like doing things alone like cycling, hiking. Um I mean there's a lot of great cyclists from the UK. Yeah, yeah, that's true. That's true. I mean I think it's a pretty good country to go cycling in. The climate can be quite good for cycling generally.

But I mean if I had to pick a more British sport, I think football of course is the most famous and I I I haven't played football in a team for I mean, since I was a kid, honestly. But that is one that I would enjoy playing, for sure. I just rarely do. So again, my answer is not exactly answering directly your question, but yeah, I'd say something like that.

Okay, very good. Well, I'm sorry to put you on the spot. I mean, uh it's kind of unfair. You're not speaking for the whole of the country, right? But I know so many of our listeners are are interested in England and and British culture and all of those things. So I thought I'd get uh a real native's opinion. So thank you for answering those. And Michael, I think that'll bring us to the end of our interview here. So thank you so much for talking to me.

Today it was great to get to know you a bit. And uh I hope many of our listeners go over and check out your website. We'll we'll put the link in the description for this episode, guys, so that you can just uh go and check that out easily. But yeah, thank you so much, Michael. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much for having me. It's been really fun.

And that's gonna bring us to the end of this episode. Again, a huge thanks to Michael from the Level Up English podcast. It was great chatting with him, and I really enjoyed the conversation, as I hope you did too. Remember to check out our Discord server, which is the place where the QLULPS community gathers, we hang out with each other, we talk with each other, and we build our English fluency together. It's free for everyone to join and the link is in the description for this episode.

I can't wait to hear about your comments. I'll be keeping my eyes and ears peeled for them. Everyone, please take care. Have a great week up ahead here, and I'll catch you in the next episode. Until then, bye-bye.