My girlfriend and I recently spent a three week working holiday on a remote farm in the mountains of France. We had some weird experiences, met lots of strange people and had some bizarre conversations, which we have turned into a series of podcasts for Hear English, aimed at intermediate and advanced level learners of English. This is our fourth story in the series and is a monologue based on our conversations with one of the guys who was working with us on the farm, called Alex, and it's about scrounging hippies (the transcript is available at http://hearenglishhere.blogspot.com/).
Scrounging Hippies – a Monologue
Good evening, how’s it going? Have you been watering the plants in the greenhouse? Cheers man, that’s one less thing to do. Do you want a fag? Yeah, I shouldn’t smoke, I know its unhealthy, but I don’t care, you’ve got to enjoy life, and that’s what I’m here for anyway, to take some time out of work to relax and think about what I want to do. Not that I had a real job before, I did a course in engineering but it was hard, man, so I did eco-tourism instead but yeah I wanted to take some time off to relax and think about what I want to do with life. And you can’t relax without a spliff and some beers right?
If you worry about dying the whole time, you don’t spend any time living. Someone famous said that, I can’t remember who, but it’s a good quote. People won’t leave you alone though, everyone’s always going on at me, don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t take drugs, and they’re right in a way but you know, it's my body, I can do what I want with it, and I’m not in that bad shape, there are people who are worse.
I mean I don’t smoke that much, I’m not addicted, I’ve only had a couple of fags today…well maybe more than a couple, actually today’s not been a good day, I had to go to the job centre, and that always puts me on edge so I smoked a fair bit today, and then I had a couple of spliffs to wind down with after.
Ah, now the job centre was a waste of time, we had to mess around doing an employment workshop. I have to go or they won’t give me my social security, and it's only a morning really so not too bad. They don’t teach you anything you don’t know already though, I mean, if I wanted a job I’d get one, you know, I just want to take some time out and re-assess my life you know?
The workshop is a waste of time for everyone out here though. You see, everyone around here has done the same job their whole life, the problem is that everyone’s dying off and there are loads of job vacancies, but the only people who move here are hippies who don’t want to work. So at the workshops the guys who take them know they’re wasting their time, but they have to run them, and the hippies think they’re wasting their time but they have to go, and afterwards no-one takes any jobs. The whole thing is ridiculous, they should make it so they have to work, I can’t believe they pay those scrounging hippies just to lie around taking drugs and …
…Yeah, yeah I know what you’re gonna say, that I fit that mould pretty well myself, but, like, for me its temporary, but they’re gonna do this all their lives, you shouldn’t give people money just to spend on drugs. Yeah well after that I felt like I deserved something nice so I cracked open a couple of beers and relaxed with a spliff…oh come on, man, its not the same, yeah technically it’s a drug but hardly, man, it's not like what everyone else is taking, it's not a class A, and it's better for you than beer for a start, yeah you should remember that beer’s a drug too before you start pointing fingers.
I bet you do a heap of unhealthy things that I don’t. You eat meat right, that’s not great for you, and bad for the environment, and you drink cow’s milk too? Oh right you don’t think that’s unhealthy? I don’t have all the facts, like, but that’s something I learned up here. And if you’re not eating organic food then you’re basically eating chemicals, and that’s really bad for your health, and really bad for the soil, the environment… The stuff they spray on crops, and put in food, its disgusting man, fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, it’s all made from petrol, so you can’t really have a go at me.
And I hardly eat any of that stuff anymore, most of my vegetables are organic now, and the milk, that’s organic. Although I shouldn’t be eating that at all but I like chocolate milk in the mornings, it’s a French thing. And I hardly eat any meat. Not that I wouldn’t eat meat, but just less. I mean would I have an organic salad over a non-organic burger? No way man, I want that burger but generally, you know I’m eating less meat. And the beer’s organic here, although usually I’ll drink anything, and the fags, they’re not organic. The weed is though, I can vouch for that, its all home-grown natural. And don’t give me that disdainful look, you’re not an innocent party. Too right man, what do you think those seedlings you’ve been watering in the greenhouse were? Oregano?
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