Transcript of AE 1174 - Interview: Getting to Know Chris Delapp from Instant English - Part 2

G'day, you mob. How's it going? Welcome to this episode of Aussie English. Today I have a special interview episode that I did with Chris Delapp from "Instant English". You may also find him under "Instant English UK". So, he's originally from Great Britain. He has taught English for quite a number of years.

He's been in places like Japan teaching and then I think more recently he's moved to Spain and he's living life- Living his best life there. I've been chatting to him a little bit on social media and getting to know him and thought it would be really cool to do a podcast interview with him where we would just see where the conversation went. And it ended up going for about an hour and a half, maybe a little longer.

So, I've cut this into two episodes and you'll kind of hear the first time we ever actually talk to each other in person and us kind of getting to know one another. So, hopefully you really enjoy this interview, guys. We cover so many topics like talking about the weather. Chris talks about his phobias of flying on planes and snakes. He talks about life in Japan, you know, working there. And then what it's like living in Spain.

We cover things like cash, using cash today versus using card and how cash is almost becoming obsolete. We obviously talk about Britain versus Australia and British English versus Australian English. We talk about ancestry and using DNA tests to work out where your ancestors came from.

And we also dive into things like Australian history, you know, the convicts and the First Fleet and how that ties in with British history too. So, I think it's a really great conversation, guys. We're just being our authentic selves, hanging out, getting to know one another and yeah, shooting the breeze. So, I hope you enjoy it. Stay tuned for both episodes.

If you're listening to part two now, listen to Part one and if you're listening to part one, stay tuned for part two. Without any further ado, slap the bird and let's get into it. Do you still use much cash, or do you find yourself using card all the time?

Now that I live in Spain, I just use card all the time. Yeah. And I've just got into the whole phone thing. Like, I couldn't believe my wife kept doing it. And I was like, oh no, this is stupid. I'm paying with my phone. But now she set it up on my phone and I can't stop doing it, it's so nice. You just tap the things with my phone. God, I'm getting old. But yeah, you know, I get excited paying with my phone now.

So yeah, I haven't seen cash for a while, which is really dangerous, right? Not dangerous in that way. But you don't even know what you're spending, and it doesn't really have the same significance. Like you're down at the pub and you're like, okay, I'll get this round.

And then you're like, no, I'll get the next round. But if you have the physical money in front of you, you can see it disappearing...

Yeah.

...Then it's- It hits you more doesn't it, so. Yeah, It's quite bad.

Oh, well...

...Is it more cash-based society or?

No, I think we're moving away from it just like everyone else. Like I was having a conversation today with a woman while I was buying some booze for my wife. She wanted some wine, so I went out and got some. But I paid for it in cash because I'd- I think I'd- I'd bought something off Facebook marketplace, and I had some cash left over. And so, it's just been sitting in my wallet because I never-

I do a lot more online shopping, so obviously I don't pay with cash there. And anytime I go into the supermarket or to stores, it's just so much easier to just go bang with the card. And after COVID, there are places that don't take cash anymore, like there's a coffee store or sort of franchise of coffee stores that you can kind of do drive through called "Bean Squeeze" in Australia.

And every time you go to them now they have a sign out the front that just says no cash accepted. So, it probably also makes their life easy, and they don't have to store any of the money on the premises, they don't have to transport it to the bank or anything, like it's all online and people move through the queue faster.

So, yeah, I was just remarking to this girl. I was like, it's so weird paying for something in cash. I just realised that I've just never do this anymore and I realised that if I didn't today I'm like, well, this is just going to sit in my wallet, like I'm not going to use it. So, I should probably, you know, purchase something with the cash that I've got in my wallet, or it would just probably end up a kid's toy or something in the house.

Yeah. I mean, I think it makes so much sense, doesn't it? It's so much easier just to tap and go, let's say. And yeah, like, you don't need to cash up if you're in a restaurant or whatever, you don't need to, you know, evaluate. You don't need to process the amount of money you've made that day or anything like that. Right. So, it's quite good, really.

Yeah, exactly. Was that the...

I remember when I lived in Japan...

Yeah.

...Sorry, I was going to say, I remember when I lived in Japan. I think it's still the same, but that was- It was from 2014 to 2017. So, it was not that long ago. But they don't do card, like they don't- They rarely- You can't really pay with card.

Really?

You have to- Well, they take credit card, but they don't have debit cards. So, I only had like a cash machine card. I felt like I was 14 again. So, you could only pay with cash in the majority of places, like apart from maybe hotels or something. But everywhere I went, it was always cash-cash.

And if you wanted to pay for something on the Internet, you had to do this thing where you buy it online and then you had to go to like a 7-Eleven or a family mart. And then you went to the machine, and you put the money in the machine, and then you got like a receipt, and then you put that number in online, and then it would clear the payment and the product would be sent to you, whatever it was from Amazon or whatever.

That's really interesting because I would have thought... I would have thought Japan would be so much more organised. Right. One of those countries that are so technologically advanced, you'd imagine they'd be the first to have all this stuff sort of sorted out and as efficient as possible.

They are really advanced in some ways. Like it's crazy. You know, the city of Tokyo with like 33 million people is so organised. But then on some- On the other hand, like the cash side of things is really dated but also like they don't really have wi-fi anywhere.

If you go to like a coffee shop and you're like, do you have wi-fi? I would say 50/50, you've got 50/50 chance that they'd say no or yes.

Really?

So, it's quite odd that they don't really- You know, there's loads of things that they kind of still- Like, oh, and the other thing as well, when I worked for my first school, they would send my rota for the day via fax, or at the end of every day they would send me the piece of paper via fax for my next day's classes.

So, it was really odd, like they're still hugging the fax machine.

That's full 80s.

Which is why they couldn't email me, you know. Yeah. So, but you know, and then on the other hand, they had cars that drive themselves, so. It's very odd.

I guess it's, you know, as someone who's a big outsider with Japan, you might know better than me, as someone who's been there and worked there. But it's- I feel like the Japanese hold on to their traditions quite strongly at times and are probably, you know, not keen to change the way that they do things if it's a certain way and it works.

So, I don't know if that like in a business or something, if they're using the fax and it's just a common cultural practice, they're probably not keen to sort of change the way that things are done because they are kind of culturally conservative that way. But I don't know.

Yeah. Like they- Well, one thing, for example, which would highlight that sort of traditional value would be that they have this stamp. So, like every person has their own stamp, which is supposed to be very secure because, you know, if you get a stamp from a particular person, how would anyone else have that stamp?

Because you gave it to them.

...Go to the shop and get more, mate.

Yeah.

Like there's so many things I had to do in the beginning where like, okay, but you need to get the stamp and you need to have your own stamp. And I say, I'm not going to get a stamp. I'm not going to, you know, I just- It's just- It's not- I found it a bit silly, so I was like, I'm not going to get a stamp. And then once you kind of pleaded for a bit, they were like, okay, well, maybe not the stamp, just your signature will be fine.

I was like, thank you. You know, but- So, a lot of places I had to go to I had to get a stamp and then the signature from the director or from the local politician or the admin or whatever it could be. So, I think what happened was that they also with the technology side, they had like their boom in the 90s or maybe the 80s and they're very proud of that boom.

And so, they still hold on to... (Inaudible) ...Technology, whether it's fax or cassette players or VHS. And then I don't know, for me nowadays when I look at Asia, I think South Korea is sort of way ahead of them. And they are preferring to like, oh, they prefer to hold on to those old traditions or those old forms of technology because they're still proud of it. But I'm not really sure why they do it. But yeah, they are proud people.

Yeah, it is interesting, isn't it, the rise of South Korea and how much they've just taken off with technology.

Yeah. And sort of entertainment as well. It's mad how, you know, well- Like, when I've lived in other countries as well, like even in Peru, for example, people- Like the kids that I teach in Peru, you know, they were a million- Culturally a million miles away from South Korea. And some of them would be like diehard fans, like they would be so into it, like BTS or whoever the other bands are or Korean dramas...

The K-Pop and the Korean dramas. Yeah.

...Nearly be shedding a tear.

Oh, man. We've got...

...You know, like in the Andes Mountains.

We've got a friend that- My wife's best friend from Brazil, and she lets us use her Netflix account. Don't tell anyone. So, sometimes we jump on there and I'm just like, has she geolocated this to Korea? Like, what am I looking at? And everything is South Korean TV shows.

And my wife's like, oh no, she's just into that stuff, you know? She just loves that style TV show the way that they do things. And I remember just being like, I didn't even know that that was a thing. Right? Like, I can't imagine- I don't know.

I can't imagine going to Britain and you guys just being like, I just watch Australian TV or I just watch Ecuadorean, you know, pop shows or, you know, like it would just be such a random thing for you to just be sort of like, no, I'm just into this one country's one type of TV show and I'm just obsessed, especially when it's so distant. Yeah, like a Brazilian being obsessed with K-Pop and Korean TV shows.

Again, there's nothing wrong with this at all, but it's just such a- It's sort of like, how did you find this? How did you stumble upon that? Did you watch "Squid Games"? And that was the- Squid Game, and you got into it through that or what?

Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes I'd almost get offended because I'd be, like, telling them about England or you know, I'd be like, oh, I'm from Oxford. You know, introduce myself at the beginning of a class. I'm from Oxford, and you know, they would just have blank faces. And then later on they would tell me about some obscure area in South Korea.

And I was like, how dare you not know Oxford, but you know the surname of the lead singer of BTS. You know, like how- You know, it's just ridiculous, but...

I kept getting those comments- I have a video on YouTube that's gotten, I don't know, over a million views and it's about Australian accents. And I remember that going up and every second comment was "I'm here because of Felix" or something. And it turned out- It turned out the person that they were referring to was in a Korean pop band and was Korean Australian, and so spoke Australian English flawlessly. Right.

Like he'd grown up here I think, but also grown up in Korea. And so, he'd move back later and become this huge K-Pop star, but he would speak English with a full-on Aussie accent. And so, all these people were suddenly really interested in Australian English because this Korean star...

Yeah. Good for you.

Oh, it was just random, though. I remember doing this and getting so many people being like, can you react to some K-Pop with Felix, and can you watch these videos? And I'm like, this is so left of field. Like, I feel like it has nothing to do with anything that I'm doing. But they just they keep coming in all the time. Even now they'll be like, I'm here because of Felix. I'm here because of Felix.

And I'm like, all right.

Well, as long as you are getting paid. Just I would milk that dry. Keep it coming.

That's it. Felix wants you to watch all the ads on my YouTube channel. Please, guys. So, is that the last- Was that the last question for the Aussie questions or was there one left at the end there?

Oh no, I did have- Yeah. There was one left. Sorry. You're right. Why do Australians always end their sentences on a soprano?

So, are they talking about upspeak, you think there?

I- Yeah, I think so.

This is such a cliche. Like so you'll get- It's not all Australians. There are definitely some and I don't do it at least as far as I know, you know. When I finish a sentence, it'll go down. Like that. You know, I don't typically do the whole, "so I'm going to go to the shops and then maybe later I might do this and so I might see my dog as well."

And you know, there are definitely Australians who do that, and it is the fucking bane of our existence. Like the average Australian hates it, I think like anyone who speaks English anywhere I think hates when- It's probably the same in all languages.

If you do something that is incredibly repetitive all the time in your way of speaking, whether it's use of words or phrases or the intonation that you use, it grinds on people because they're hearing it at such a high frequency. So, if I was always saying- What was the- There was a good example. I watched a video the other day and this guy was using- Oh, he was saying "regardless" all the time when he was moving on topic.

So, instead of saying like "anyway" he kept saying "regardless" and I was just like, he's using it in the wrong context. Like you don't use "regardless", right, to sort of change topics and move on. Unless you're saying like, "everything I just said was, you know, it isn't important.

That's probably what he was trying to say.

He was- He said it like 20 times in a 20-minute interview and it was just like grinding on me because like he just kept doing it. So, he'd be like, oh, so I had this problem, and I did this, but regardless. And then we did this and this and this, but regardless.

And it was coming up so frequently that I was just like, Jesus Christ, man, learn a few other synonyms and just throw them in there. You know, like "anyway, but besides that", you know, switch it up. So, I think it's the same thing with upspeak or up talk in Australia. There are people who do it. There's a comedian, there's an Asian comedian that I have followed for a while.

I've forgotten his name. I think his first name is Chris as well. It might be. I'll have to look it up, but he does it as part of his act and it's the most annoying thing, but he's hilarious, so it kind of works in. So, he'd be like, "so how are you guys? Oh, you're going well." You know, he so just does that all the time and you just- It's just a joke because you see him interviewed and he never does it and you're just like, okay.

But it's sort of- I'm going off on a tangent, but I recently got into houseplants and rare house plants, and I've been watching a lot of YouTube videos. And it's really interesting because it seems like as a straight white man, this is not my hobby. Like, it feels like something that I am a foreigner in this land. Like when I get on YouTube all...

...Mowing the lawn, you know?

Yeah, every single lawn mowing enthusiast on YouTube will be a fat, middle aged white bloke from Australia. No, but so they're all very young women, usually very attractive and trendy. Like they're into interior design, their fashions all sorted out, they've got beautiful makeup on, or they'll be very, very flamboyantly gay men and often mixed race game. Like, I don't know, there's just a-

It's a really, really interesting dynamic. And I think when getting into this I realised how they all speak the same way, and they all use up talk. So, I followed these- There's two Canadians that I follow. One's a gay man of Asian origin in, I think Vancouver. And there's a young white woman from Vancouver Island. Actually, one's from Toronto, ones from Vancouver, and they both use up talk all the time.

And I think he does it because he speaks in a very feminine way. So, he'll do that whole like, oh my gosh. And then I did this and like, wow, you know, like very, very flamboyantly homosexual kind of way of speaking. And it's sort of very feminine. And again, I'm not trying to put anyone down, it's just very interesting.

But I've noticed all these people in this niche seem to be watching each other's videos, and I don't know if they already did it before it, but they all use up talk and- Like it's just the most weird thing. And I again, that was when I was like, shit, it's not just Australians. This is Canadians. There are some Americans that do it.

There's Brits that I've noticed doing it, people in London, you know, and there's an American woman living in London who has like this half-half accent, and she does it. And I'm like, it's just really interesting that it's obviously this- I don't know. If it's something that is everywhere anyway.

But also these guys watch each other's videos and its sort of part of a very small niche and culture group and they're copying one another, whether consciously or subconsciously. So, yeah, I don't think the up-talk thing is just Australian, but we do do it. And weirdly enough, you'd have to tell me if you've noticed this as well. But I notice women doing this more than men.

So, and if men do it often it's gay men who are taking on a more feminine way of speaking and they kind of emphasise it to times ten. And so, will do it incessantly.

Yeah. I'm not sure if it's... Should we start? But I know it's- Well, I think women tend to elongate certain verbs, you know, like you know, I went to the shop, you know, there'll be some sort of vowels that elongate more than others. But I'm not sure if at the end of the sentence, I have to keep an eye out for that. But one thing that comes up on my mind quite a lot would be the drop of the "T"'s. I can't seem to get away with that.

And the internet like whenever I'm just talking, making a video, someone, I swear to God, every single video there will be someone who will comment "bottle-o-water" like, but they'll write it in a very sort of mean way.

Yeah.

And I just can't get away from it. I don't know. I just- Maybe I should make a video just imitating an American accent or something, because it's just something like a little tag someone has to put on there. I don't know why.

You just need to learn to speak English properly, mate.

Yeah. /t/. /t/. Yes, aloud, I can do it.

Well, you can do it at the start of syllables. It's just the ones at the end, right, at the ends of syllables or between them. So, instead of using the T flap or whatever you do, the glottal stop, that water. But it's like you should just point to Ricky Gervais. He doesn't give a fuck. He's worth, you know, more than the pope, 150 million or something. And he uses the glottal stop all the time. You know?

He's just got that really strong, is it cockney or is it...? What's the accent? It's like a London Cockney kind of accent that uses the- That typical thing you said, that "bottle-o-water".

Yeah. Well, he definitely drops the "a", he definitely does the glottal stop or makes the glottal stop. I think he's- It's hard to say because now he sort of lives outside London and I've only ever seen him in his like mansion lifestyle. So, he lives like in Hertfordshire, I think outside London, which is kind of a posh sort of suburb of London or outside the outskirts of London. So, yeah.

So, he kind of strikes me as like, I don't know, he seems- Comes across as like posh. I don't know if he's that cockney, but that might just be because he's created that image of being quite wealthy now, but...

I love how he always works that into his comedy where he'll just be like, I think in one of his most recent ones, he was making a joke about how he was actually a minority. He was like, "I'm a fat, middle aged, balding dude who's worth millions". And he was like, "most people aren't that", you know, like, you know, "I'm a minority". And he's like, "I need your sympathy". You know, you should be giving me respect.

Yeah. Yeah, that's true. I think he does that in every stand up- In every Stand-Up show, especially the ones that he's recorded. It would just be like something like, well, you know, I'm filthy rich or something like that. So, it's really he's hilarious.

I think it's one of those things you can't get away from it, right...

...As well.

...Like, it's so obvious that you have to almost address the elephant in the room.

Yeah, exactly. Because he's trying to- Like, he's trying to make fun of- He makes fun of like many rich people as well, like many celebrities and that kind of thing. So, I suppose he's trying to sort of make fun of himself before anyone could get to him, which is obviously hilarious as well.

You know, he doesn't drive.

...Pretty good. I love the office as well. Does he not?

He doesn't have a driver's license. He's never driven. He was on that podcast that he does with Sam Harris and he's like, I just never learnt to drive.

And Sam's like, wait, what? Like what do you mean you don't drive? You're like 60. You've never driven. And he's like, I just walked everywhere.

Jesus. I had no idea. Maybe he lived in London then. That kind of would make sense of it.

I know. That blew my mind. Yeah.

Yeah.

Anyway, sorry. This was meant to be my interview mate. You've been interviewing me for the last hour. There was a lot of stuff I wanted to get out. So, I did a bit of research about like, what you know, some, well, Australian things and some words and that, and then I found these questions and I thought I need to get them- So, I had some others, like what is the most Australian word out there?

Like I was thinking, what is the most stereotypical word? Would it just be- Like for you because, you know, everyone there are stereotypes from other countries like g'day mate and stuff like that. But there must be other ones that are more realistic but are used heavily.

So, in like a negative way or in a way that people who aren't Australian would know them?

...Like, I think. Yeah. Well, I think, for example, whenever I say like I'm from England, people would often say like, the bottle-o-water thing or- What else would they say? Or mate, perhaps they would say mate. But...

Yeah.

...I think probably- Well, mate is used a lot, but I would say "alright" is probably the most British word out there. Just alright, alright, yeah, I'm alright.

Yeah, that's such a peculiar... ...That's such a peculiar greeting for us. And I think Americans too, because you guys do that, "you're right or alright". And if someone walked up to me and just said, "alright", I'd be like, What's alright? Like, what do you mean? Like- And if they said to you, if they walked up to me and said...

...Something wrong, right?

Yeah. If they said, are you alright? I'd be like, yeah, I'm fine. You know, or that it would be like they were expressing concern, like, you know, as if I'd been hit by a car or something and they've walked over like, oh my God, are you alright? Whereas yeah, you guys use it as just like, "how's it going?" Kind of greeting, right?

So, I think, yeah, it's just it's very- We like to be, I think, very neutral or very sort of centred. So, we would always say like, "you're right. alright". Yeah, I'm alright. Yeah, me too. I'm doing pretty good. Or like things are always just nice or lovely, like, oh, it's a nice day. Oh, what do you think of this top? Yeah, it's nice.

You know, nothing's ever extreme or it's always quite centred. So...

We have a sort of...

...I think that's why we use that one quite a lot. We have a cliche that would be everything's a negative. Like not negative as in like a bad thing, but it's always played down. So, Carl Barron, the comed- There's an Australian comedian, he's a bald guy from Queensland and he's hilarious. But he talks about this and he's like, Australians are so understated, and it will be that "how are you? Not bad."

Or "what are you up to this weekend? Nothing much, nothing much." You know. And he does this whole skit where he's like, so I was on a plane the other day and there was a guy next to me and the bloody engine caught on fire. And the guy looks out the window, turns around, and he's just like, oh, that doesn't look good.

You know like, so the whole thing is just how Australians, especially, I think men will often just playthings down and it's just like you never sort of make a big deal about things and say, you know, "how are you? I'm amazing, over the moon, you know, everything's great." Blah, blah, blah. You'd just be like, yeah, not bad. Even if, you know, your dog's died or something and you're upset, you'd be like, oh, yeah, not bad. Not too bad.

You know? Not too Shabby.

Yeah, it could be worse.

Yeah, I think I've had worst days. I think that's probably why British people- Well, from my point of view, we feel more connected to Australia than to the US, because if you ask someone from the US like how are you doing? Or if you give someone a compliment in the US, like, oh, your videos are amazing, they'll be like, oh, thank you so much. Oh, thank you.

But in the UK it would be more like, yeah, you know, but I don't edit them myself. Someone helps me. You know, it would be like everything will be kind of- We find it very hard to take a compliment. It would be more like, oh, well, thank you very much. But you know, I got a bit lucky, I suppose.

Oh, 100%. 100%.

And not that extreme in Australia, but similar.

It's the same thing here with that tall poppy syndrome thing that I talked to you about. Like if you were to be like, yeah, I know, I'm fucking awesome. You know, people would be like, this guy is a wanker. Like...

Yeah.

Like, that is a massive red flag right there, my mate.

But yeah, that was all my questions, I think. But yeah, it was interesting to dive into that because, you know, it's not something I think about too often really.

What- How do you guys view Australians? Like what do you- And how would you think the average Brit who's never been to Australia would view Australians?

The people I think we would normally think of them as a bit freer, a bit wilder in terms of not being timid or shy to do anything or to speak to anyone, but having a bit of, like, a little bit of us in them. You know, like a little bit of humility and that kind of thing.

But at the same time, maybe jumping off of things or you know, jumping out of planes or doing things which we would want to do, but we're a bit like maybe it's a bit dangerous, maybe not. So, I think we see you as like crazy cousins, you know, like you're a bit freer to do what you want. I would say in general.

Yeah. It's always interesting asking people that sort of question as an outsider. What do you think of Australia or of Australians? How would you guys view the country like geographically, the location? Does it seem like something that's like ages away, dangerous, like too hot? What's sort of the stereotypical belief about the place?

Yeah, very far away. I think most people would say, you know, it's impossible to get to or very hard to reach. I personally would see it as, like, massive. Like, I don't think it's normally put into perspective of how big it is. But when you- Because it's just, you know, it's on the map, it's kind of like down at the bottom- Well, like from an English perspective is down at the bottom and you know, in the corner.

And it's normally quite small but fairly small. But it's huge, isn't it? It's like...

Yeah.

...I dunno how many times it could fit into Europe, but I feel like it could be six times or something ridiculous...

I think it's 7 million square kilometres, so it's similar size to Canada and America, you know, and China. I think those three are bigger than Australia, but it's that kind of same sort of width.

The first time I really was taken aback by the size of it was when somebody mentioned when they were doing the work away on one of the farms that the farmer had helicopters to do the farming. And I was like, that is nuts.

Yeah. So...

...Helicopter to get around.

That would be because they have free ranging livestock, usually bulls and cows that just- We have some farms in Australia that are the size of small European countries. Like if I type in here, "largest farm Australia" into Google. It's Anna Creek and it's 5.8 million acres. So, it's just it's insane. It's huge. It's- What's it the size of?

So, like if I type in "Anna Creek is the size of" and then see what comes up.

Estonia I reckon. No.

Albania. It's 1.2 times bigger than Albania, I think. Austria is only 3.5 times bigger than Anna Creek Station. So, there you go. It's a quarter of the size of or a bit more than a quarter of the size of Austria. But because they're so big, they just kind of let their livestock free range and they'll have thousands upon thousands of them.

And so, the only way to get them to come back is usually that they use a helicopter to go find them all, to then round them up. And then on multiple days, the helicopter has to repeat this process and get them going a certain direction to bring them back to the homestead or wherever they need to round them up to bring them back into. So, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah it's bigger than Israel.

...Estate must be really expensive then.

Yeah. Well definitely recently because of fuel prices. But yeah, it is huge. I think we have that cliche of is it a hundred years in Australia is a long time and 100 kilometres in Great Britain is a long way. So, there are times like I'll drive sometimes. I remember driving to Canberra in a single day and it would be seven and a half hours and I would just do it in two stops.

Like you would stop once for a piss or a poo or something and something to eat, and you would just smash out the rest of it and I'd be like, yeah, that's no big deal.

...The average English person would take about a month to do that.

Really? Yeah, because and it's just the expectations, right. And so, I've driven to Bundaberg, which is halfway between Cairns and Brisbane in Queensland, so it's about 2 hours north of Cairns- Of north of Brisbane by driving. Maybe a bit further than that actually, maybe it's actually quite a bit more. But anyway, it's about I think 1,500 kilometres north of where I live, and I've driven there in two days.

So, you just, you know, you just smash it out. I'll be in a car with three friends, and you just take turns driving the entire time and then you just have that expectation of sometimes if you want to go to a certain place, it's- It is only two days away, but you just have to drive the entire time to get there. And so, I think for perspective, Perth would be 3 to 4 days non-stop I think from where I live.

So, that's how far away Perth is. I think it would be like 2,500-3,000 kilometres from where I am.

Most people just drive around then, in what I mean in terms of like if you're lets say younger or if you want to save a bit of cash? Or is it just cheaper, cheaper to fly? You do it more for the experience.

I think- It's definitely cheaper to fly. Like it would only be a few hundred dollars to fly to Brisbane or to Cairns or whatever from Melbourne. And so, and you'd be there within 3 or 4 hours if you were flying up to Cairns, you might have to have a changeover in Brisbane. But if you're driving it's I think Cairns would be- Let's see if I type in "Melbourne to Cairns drive". What does it give me on Google here?

31 hours. So, that's 2,817.8 kilometres from Melbourne where I live, so it'd be an extra hour and a half on top of that to get to where I am outside of Melbourne. But so that would yeah, that's only a day and a half if you just don't stop. So, almost 3,000 kilometres.

...No time.

Yeah. But I mean, there would be people who drive that in two days, maybe three days if they were really in a rush, they would do two days or maybe- You know, truckies would probably smash that out in a few stops, maybe have one sleep and then just punish it. So, it's- I think it's just an expectation. So, it's the same thing. It's funny.

I wonder if going to like Great Britain, if I went on a holiday there, I'd be in London and you'd just be like, let's just get in the car and drive to Scotland. Like, fuck it, you know, it's just- What's that, like halfway to Canberra? You know, that's not a problem. We'll just smash it out and you guys would be like, you're crazy.

Yeah. Yes, that would be just for me is madness. But you know, I suppose now I've been to other countries, but especially before I went to other countries, I was like, you know, driving for 2 hours is like, that's a long one...

But yeah, see, that's...

...It's nothing.

...That's crazy because I could do that with no stops, right. Like I'm so- You just get so habituated to it, I guess. And it would be interesting for people who end up living in Europe for a long period of time from Australia and then they come back, if you would have that kind of expectation smashed out of you and you'd be like, Jesus, everything is so far away.

Like, yeah, you'd sort of like have taken that for granted all your life, and then you lose it. You come back and you're like, screw this for a joke. But the thing I think we would view as grass being greener on the other side is you guys just being so close to so many other languages and cultures and countries and having such a deep history.

Like, although we have like the indigenous history here going back 60,000 years, which is insane, you don't really have like structures that are thousands or even really hundreds of years old that are indigenous, that you can kind of see unless they're caves with art and you know, maybe carved wooden trees and stuff like that.

But you guys can like go to Rome or to- Or even throughout parts of London, I imagine. And there are things that are from, you know what, before 1,000 A.D. or whatever, like at least a thousand years old, there'd be stuff I'd imagine you could walk around and see.

And it's just like, I can't imagine being in, say, going to Great Britain and thinking, because when I did my DNA test, I'm effectively 100% Scottish/English. I can't imagine thinking, shit, my ancestors have been here for thousands of years on this land, you know? So, that's one thing that most Australians- Every single Australian who isn't indigenous has like Max 200 years' worth of history here.

And you guys walking around on a daily basis in Europe, pretty much if you're from any of those countries, like originally as this sort of endemic population, you've got this insanely long history and the archaeology there and you know, these deep roots that I sort of see and I'm like, wow, that must feel insane.

Yeah. I think where I live now, in the south of Spain, in Malaga, there's like there's too much old shit. Like, they literally have too much now because they're trying to build a subway, like they're trying to build like a metro, and they just can't. They go like five metres and then they hit like a Roman ruin or like the ruins from when the Muslims or the Islamic...

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Is that like the 900s, right?

Or whatever it was. So. I'm not sure when it was exactly, but yeah, it was all the way- The whole of Spain basically was invaded by North Africa. I'm not sure what they call it. They call it Muslimanos in Spanish. I'm not sure if would it be just like Muslims...?

Yeah, it's Muslims. That's the same in Portuguese. Muslimanos.

Oh, is it? So, yeah. So, they just- Well, that's their excuse anyway. There probably is a lot of corruption going on as well, but they're excuse is that they keep bumping into an old wall and then they have to go around it and you know, go under it or that kind of thing, so.

And call in the archaeologists every single time.

Yeah. What did you- Did you do the DNA test then? You know where you get them online and you spit on the stick and that kind of thing?

I didn't. My parents both- My parents both did it. And I just averaged the results out. But yeah. And my wife, my wife's Brazilian and she did it. And she had the most insane one that came back.

What was it? What was hers?

Oh, man.

...I'd love to do it.

I think she had, like, 20 different countries. Like, first and foremost was- I think it was Portugal was like 60%, which isn't a surprise, right. And then I think it was like Spain, Italy, France. I think there was like Ireland. But the crazy stuff she had like 13% indigenous South American and then I think about 13% African. So, she had five different West African countries that effectively the slave trade.

They'd all been brought over to Brazil from West Africa and, you know, the Caribbean and the United States and probably Britain and Europe as well from that same area. And so, it was funny because she looks quote unquote white, right? Like you would look at her and if you didn't know she was Brazilian, you would just think, oh, she's European. But she has like all this indigenous DNA, African DNA in there as well.

And I think the average Brazilian is probably like that, because Brazil is over 500 years old, and they had slavery. I think they had slavery really early and they were one of the last to get rid of it. And as a result, the population is really mixed. So, they have this like lots of indigenous DNA in most people, lots of European DNA in most people and lots of African DNA in most people as a result of that history.

And so, it is this crazy thing where I think like, fuck, I'm just like boring Scottish/English with a little bit of like East Germanic, like about as wide as it gets. And my wife, you know, has like three different continents at least, you know. And so, yeah, it's just really, it's really interesting. And then...

...Is a shame.

Yeah, it's just, I don't know. So, I got really jealous when she did her DNA thing and it came back with just all these- I'm like, man, you've got to do your family tree. Like, imagine finding- You'd find indigenous people from South America, you'll find Africa. Like at least five different African countries with five different, you know, histories. You have families and everything that have come from all these different areas.

You might be able to find out what tribes you know, you were originally descended from and everything. And I just can't imagine having that kind of diversity in my background and being able to follow that up.

Yeah. That's- It's really- I would love to do it myself. And you know, also my wife's from Peru, so it'd be quite interesting to see if, well, where her heritage goes as well, which I imagine is probably some Spanish. But you know, it could be other countries in South America as well. But, you know, I hold hope that maybe I'm a bit- I think I'm not exactly- Well, I burn quite easily, but I think I am a little bit, I'm not the average Brit.

I feel like I've got something in me, you know, I don't know whether...

That's the litmus test, is it. It's just whether or not you sunburn easy. Your just sort of like, yeah, I'm a Brit.

Yeah, exactly. If you turn like a lobster, then you're just, you know, you're very, very British. If you're not, you've got a hint of ground in you, then- I just I hope that there's a bit of, you know, a bit of Latino in me, maybe somewhere stemming back thousands of years, maybe.

Well, it's interesting. I went to school with some guys who look like they- If you were to just put them, you know, in front of you and say, what do you think their race is? You'd probably say mixed, that one parent's Caucasian and the other person is African because, you know, the person in front of you is very, very dark, dark hair. But not really, really dark like, say, someone from, you know, an African country.

So, but his history is I think he's Italian. And I remember thinking that and he was like, oh, mate, my great grandparents were slaves, you know, like they were actually Africans that had been brought over into Italy. And I remember thinking, like, I'd never heard about, you know, black people in Italy. That seems like such a foreign thing. Like a foreign idea. Like what? But yeah.

And so, he had this really cool family history as well as a result.

Yeah. I have to get on it.

I think it only takes a few weeks, mate. You just sign up online and they send you the tube. It's sort of like a- It's literally like a RAT test, right? One of the COVID antibody tests where you just spit in a tube, shake it up, and then send it back to them and they send you the results.

As long as it's not a stick thing. God. Yeah, nothing's going up my nose anymore.

I don't think it's that. I think it's just spit in a tube now.

Oh, okay. That'd be cool. Yeah, it could make a good, cool video. Well, unless it comes back like you're 100% English. Okay, great...

You have to watch- There's a few of those reaction videos online for people doing those tests. And there was a really funny one where there was an African American woman who- She was clearly mixed descent, I think, you know, like kind of light brown, like a Rihanna kind of complexion. But she was totally expecting to have her- I think the business that she went through trace back which tribe your maternal lineage came from.

So, it looked at the mitochondrial DNA that you had, which is only passed down through the women in your family. And so, she was really expecting to get some kind of like crazy information about which African country and which tribe she'd come from. And when she got the results back, it turned out she was British. And it turns out...

The worst of the worst.

...I think it turned out that she had like one great grandparent that was a British woman. And by chance, that mitochondrial genome from that British woman in her history has been passed down through her family, who everyone else is quote unquote, African American, black, right. And so- And she almost cries because she's so upset. And you're just like, it's just here's what it is. Like...

...It's not that bad to be British. It's not that bad. You know, there are some perks. There are some perks.

Well, I just remember watching that and being like, how is she so upset that one of her ancestors was a woman from Great Britain and, you know, married an African man? And then they, you know, end up having, or a man of African descent, they end up having, you know, a bunch of other descendants and everything. And she is who she is. I can't imagine finding out say that I had Chinese DNA and crying because I was so upset.

You know, like, I can't imagine finding out that I had Spanish ancestry and being like, I've got to sweep that under the rug. That can never see the light of day. The amount of shame that that carries. Like.

I'm Australian. I know, that's it. Yeah. Well, and interestingly one thing we did used to have in our history, my grandparents were of this generation, if you had convict ancestry that was a blight on your family and your name.

You would never, ever, ever mention or talk about the fact that you had descendant or ancestors, rather, who were convicts that were brought over to Australia effectively as slave labour prisoners to work here and then, you know, later had children and everything.

Whereas nowadays it's seen as a kind of honour, like you're one of the quote unquote original European Australians, you know, that you were the- Because we have that tall poppy syndrome thing where you're one of the first downtrodden, you know, people who was sentenced to seven years hard labour in Australia for stealing a sock, you know, from some lord in London.

And you were, you know, your ancestor was 12 years old and sent out here for life. And that's now a pride thing. Whereas back in my grandparents' time, it would be like, Jesus, don't ever tell anyone, you know? Like Rose and Beverly down the street cannot know that my great-great grandmother was a convict because they'll never invite us over for the tea parties.

Yeah. Nah, it's strange, isn't it? I mean, well, it's definitely strange how, you know, a lot of people got sent to Australia. But now in England, well, people in England are looking at Australia like, oh, I wish I could live there. Nice and sunny weather. I think we got it wrong. Really. We should have emigrated there and then left all the convicts in England.

Yeah, well, it's such a fascinating history. It's such a fascinating history because you guys at the time were, I think you had like 260 different crimes that were given the death penalty because you had a massive problem with theft in the 1700s.

And I think at the time, property rights and everything was seen as incredibly important by the rich and upper-class because they were trying to protect their wealth and everything they had and really separate the classes. They didn't want anyone from the lower classes coming up either. So, it was seen as like these people aren't human, fuck these people at the bottom.

And so, all these people you look at- When you look at the original like 1,000 convicts that came over in the what would have been about 700, 800 in the first fleet, the first 11 ships that were brought out here. Some of the charges are just the dumbest things, you know. Like because anyone who had actually raped or murdered anyone was given the death penalty effectively.

They weren't sent out to Australia, as you know- Because all those sentences were death penalty sentences that were then commuted to life. You know, seven years hard labour in Australia which was effectively like today's sending someone to Mars. You know, if you were a convict sent to Australia, there was effectively no chance you'd ever be able to buy a ticket back home and be like, hey guys, I'm back after my seven years.

It was like, yeah, you're fucked, mate, you're gone, you're done, you're out of here. But some of the things were like, yeah, stealing a spoon or being a Catholic or supporting, you know, the wrong political party, being Irish, you know, stealing potatoes, hunting rabbits on someone's warren. Like so many of them were just the absolute stupidest crimes.

But at the time they carried a death penalty, and they were commuted, especially if they were children and women. So, it is really sad. You see some of these kids that came out at like the age of 12 by themselves as criminals and they were just sent here to live out the rest of their life for stealing a rabbit once to try and feed their family. And you're just like, good God.

Jesus. I didn't know that. It makes- it doesn't make sense, doesn't it? Wow, that's mad. Jesus. I know. Sorry. A bit of a negative downer.

I was gonna say, I better dash.

No. All good, dude. All good. Well, I'll have to get you on again to talk about your journey, because we kind of just had a fun conversation, which is always good. I love having these sorts of things. Especially where- It's so good to have these kinds of conversations when you first meet someone, and it just works.

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I mean, it was lovely. It's a nice little pick-me-up in the morning. Now I feel fully awake. Half and a bit about the rabbit... (Inaudible) ...Rabbit thieves. Oh, yeah...

Before you go, though, Chris. Before you go, can you please tell people your name is Chris Delapp and you have "Instant English UK" on social media and YouTube and everything. Can you tell people where to find you on the social media's?

Yeah, sure. So, on all platforms, my name is "Instant English". Sometimes maybe "Instant English UK" if you can't find it straight away. And you can find me on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook and Bilibili if you're Chinese, mate.

Wow.

Which is really fun because a lot of it I can't read, but it's fun to be on there. I've got some help from a lady who does the translations for me, but yeah. Also on Bilibili.

Wow.

And my name is Chris.

Yeah, well, thanks for coming on, Chris. It's been really good. I will get you on again, though, and we'll have to talk about your journey doing, you know, what you're doing, how you ended up in Spain, married to a Peruvian and where you've travelled and everything. But yeah, thank you for the conversation today. It's been an absolute pleasure and I hope to have you back soon, mate.

Likewise. Thanks so much for having me.

Alrighty, guys. That's it for this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. Chris, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, mate. It was incredible to finally get to sort of meet you in the flesh, although I guess it was virtually in the flesh.

Guys, remember, you can check him out at "Instant English" on pretty much every single platform. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you haven't checked out part one, go back. That was last week. I hope you enjoy that part too. And yeah, I'll see you guys' next time. Catch ya.