English Insights from Luke Thompson’s Sky-Pod

What’s a sky-pod? That’s what Luke Thompson calls his office, a rooftop terrace overlooking the Eiffel Tower where he records his award-winning podcast for listeners around the world. This expat from England has an impressive list of “Luke’s English Podcast” episodes–557 and counting to be exact–where he combines English teaching with entertaining conversation and insight into the culture of the language. His Paris story is more than his job, however. In fact, Luke moved to France… for love.

What is your Paris story?

I’m a comedian / teacher / podcaster from England. I came to Paris about 6 years ago because I met a French girl in London and didn’t want to lose her. She was in London for 2 weeks. We saw each other all the time. When she had to go back to Paris we kissed at the Eurostar station and I watched her leave. It was difficult. We decided to keep things going, despite living in different countries. As she left that day I thought to myself “Oh boy, here we go”. I knew I was entering a new chapter in life.

I never expected to end up with a French girl, but you can’t pick who you fall for. We had a long-distance relationship for about 3 years before I decided to leave my life in London and head to Paris. I cancelled my phone connection, switched off the wifi, rented out my flat and packed up my entire life in the back of a car and drove to Paris. On the way there I must admit I did think to myself “What the hell are you doing?” but I was also happy to finally be able to live with my girlfriend (now my wife), and Paris is not bad either! Still, I moved here for the girl, not the city. I sometimes don’t get on with Paris, but this is now my home.

I am an English teacher and have been one for 17 years. These days my main projects are my podcast, my website and my other online English teaching work. I’m also a stand-up comedian and it’s great to be able to perform comedy here in Paris, in English, on a regular basis.

In terms of what I do – these days I mainly produce episodes of my podcast in which I try to help people to learn English by keeping them entertained any way I can. I produce the podcast at home in my flat, often recording my episodes here on the rooftop.

Tell us about this spot you chose.

We have a small rooftop terrace with a little office next to it. I call it my sky-pod, and that’s where I do my recordings. It’s cool to sit there with a view over the roofs of Paris, talking to people around the world. My biggest audiences are in China, Russia and Japan. France is something like #15 in my list of countries.

Whenever I move to a new city (and I’ve done that quite a lot – Liverpool, Birmingham, Tokyo, London, Paris) I always need to get a good view of the whole city. It somehow helps me to develop my relationship with the place. Finding a good view is a crucial moment in my relationship with a city. I need to see the whole thing and then I can say “this is my city now” or just “this is my home”.

In every city I’ve lived in, I’ve had these moments when I can absorb the city as a whole from one viewpoint. In London it was when I found a flat with a view of the city from the 9th floor. In Paris, it’s the view from our rooftop. I can see most of the big landmarks. It’s a very special place for me. I can connect with the city, without having to be down on the street with the crowds of people and the traffic.

It is also the perfect place to get inspiration and then record episodes of my podcast. The sunsets in the evening are particularly stunning. My audience like it when I share video footage while recording the podcast.

What has been your favorite moment in Paris so far?

There have been lots of great moments, mostly provided by my wife who has been introducing the city to me ever since I first came here. The birth of my daughter obviously stands out. The taxi ride on the way to the hospital was oddly serene (my wife was amazing) and we drove across Place de la Concorde at 1AM on Boxing Day. It was deserted, and beautiful. The next time we went through that place we were a family of 3.

But, another very special moment for me was performing stand-up at the Bataclan in front of over 1000 people. I was one of the opening acts for my mate Paul Taylor, who was doing a special performance of his one-man show. He invited me to be one of his opening acts because I’d helped him write some episodes of “What the Fuck France”, the Canal+ TV show.

The Bataclan was completely full, which was amazing. Someone told me there were at least 1,300 people in the audience. Normally I perform to small rooms, but this was something truly special. The great thing was that for some reason I wasn’t scared and in fact I just loved it completely. All those people sort of lift you up and you just perform your material much bigger and more expressively. I wanted to stay on stage for the whole show!

Also it was special to perform there after what had happened in November 2015. We hung out backstage before the show and realised that this is where people had been attacked and tried to escape. These were the windows that people had jumped out of. Bad things happened in the main room. But that evening was different because we raised the roof with laughter. It was amazing and felt like some sort of victory. The Bataclan is no longer a site of tragedy, at least for me anyway.

Tell us about your most challenging experience as an expat.

My most challenging experiences are always social ones. This is because of my French, which is not good enough for meaningful conversations or even just human-level interactions. I’m quite hung up on this as you will know if you’ve seen my stand up.

My French isn’t very good, but my excuses are improving all the time. I work in English, speak to my wife in English, do stand up in English. Everything’s in English. People I talk to always switch to English as soon as they hear my say “bonjour”. I get overcharged in small shops and can’t negotiate my way out of it. Going to the Post Office to pick up a package feels like taking part in a hostage negotiation. I’m lazy when it comes to studying the language, and my confidence is shot to pieces because I beat myself up about it. As a result I just tend to dry up completely in social situations. The longer I stay here without my French improving, the more excruciating it becomes for me. Obviously I have to sort this out but ironically I’m a terrible student, despite being a language teacher.

A French party is like my worst nightmare. I dread the inevitable conversations about my French and then about how long I’ve lived here. Generally I just want the earth to swallow me up. Also I always have the feeling I’m committing all sorts of social errors like cutting the cheese in the wrong way or putting the bread in the wrong place. The French value bread so much it even has a good luck system built into it, and it’s the only food which you can just put on the table, like it’s immune to bacteria.

I would be very happy to know if some of your readers have the same experiences as me, certainly regarding communicating in French. As far as I can tell, everyone else around me is just learning the language and doing great. I don’t know what my problem is.

On the plus side I did recently pass my French test for citizenship. It was a borderline pass. So I have the bare minimum required to become French – which is a necessity because of Brexit.

When I first moved here I thought it would be for a couple of years. My wife loves London and we talk about moving back sometimes. Now I’m applying to become French. This is the last thing I expected!

How do you meet people in Paris?

I tend to meet people doing stand up comedy. I’ve met most of my close friends here doing that. Also we sometimes get famous comedians in town who want to do some comedy at our shows. I’ve met people like Gad Elmaleh, Jim Gaffigan, Eddie Izzard and others, which is amazing and unexpected!

There’s a small comedy scene here in English. These days the most common shows where I perform are:
French Fried Comedy Night on Tuesdays at Paname Art Cafe.
New York Comedy Night on Thursdays at Cafe Oscar.
The Great British American Comedy Night in Saturdays at Le Soum Soum
Also, “Lost in Frenchlation” now have comedy before they screen some of their French films with English subtitles.

When I have a comedy show in the diary, I post the links on my Facebook page.

 

What advice would you give to others wanting to move abroad?

I would say, think about why you want to move abroad. Is it because you’re unhappy living in your current place? When we travel to a new place, we still bring ourselves with us. We bring our own personalities, issues, foibles. Basically, what I mean is beware of travelling as a means of escape. It won’t work. We always believe the grass is greener. Also, beware of having an idealistic view of a place you’re going to, because the reality is probably a lot more tough and challenging.

My main advice is to keep it real, make your own happiness, explore and give yourself time to really find your own place in the city. Think about your reasons for wanting to move and perhaps work out any issues you have inside first.

Find something to do like an activity, make new friends, have new experiences and do your best to learn the local language! Don’t use me as an example when it comes to learning French. It doesn’t matter what people think of you, and French people find it adorable when foreigners try to speak their language, although you might have to put up with a million comments about your accent.

How do you deal with homesickness?

I generally deal with homesickness by going to Marks & Spencer, and loading up on tea and biscuits. I then go home and stuff chocolate digestives into my face and wash them down with M&S Gold Blend tea (the best tea you can get in Paris btw) while listening to The Beatles and/or watching Monty Python clips on YouTube. This is how I spend most of my time actually.

How can people continue following your story?

The best place to go is my website. This is where people can listen to episodes of my podcast. I’ve told a lot of stories in episodes over the years, including my first experiences of moving here, tales of ending up in hospital in Japan, climbing a volcano in Indonesia, struggling to learn French and more. Also there are lots of fun conversations with friends of mine who perform comedy. You might enjoy it. Really, the podcast has won quite a few awards over the years. I’m quite proud of it.

 

Photos by Kate Devine