NEW - Quizlet Flashcards: click here for link to vocabulary cards from this episode
[00:00:00.000] - Oliver (Host)
Welcome to another episode of English and Beyond: the Advanced Version of the Podcast. As always, a transcript is available online at www.morethanalanguage.com, and you can also find there flashcards for the most difficult vocabulary that we use in the podcast today. Let's begin. People from other countries have many negative stereotypes about British people, and there's nothing like living abroad, as I have in a few different places places, to be confronted by how disliked your country can be. Of course, there are some pleasant stereotypes, too, about politeness, queuing, apparently our sense of humour. We've discussed some of those topics in the podcast already, in fact. But there's also a lot of negativity about our apparently terrible food, our inability to learn other languages, our antisocial behaviour abroad, especially while drunk, and perhaps most cuttingly, most hurtfully, our teeth. I say hurtfully because I have developed over the years a bit of an obsession with teeth, and this has been passed down directly to me from my mother. One of my favourite jokes from The Simpsons is when the Simpsons family goes to the dentist for a checkup. Ralph Wiggum is in the dentist's chair, and he's being interrogated about his brushing habits.
[00:01:24.640] - Oliver (Host)
The fearsome dentist correctly ascertains, correctly works out, that Ralph has been neglecting his teeth, and he needs to give him a scare to make sure that he brushes twice a day. To do so, he pulls out the Big Book of British Smiles, which culminates in a photo of Prince Charles's unattractive gnashers. Ralph unsurprisingly breaks down sobbing, "Enough, enough," with the threat of having teeth like a Brit. We, Brits, have a terrible reputation for teeth, but do we deserve it? Well, as a good patriot, you can imagine that I'm going to defend the UK's dentistry. The stereotype that Brits have terrible teeth is largely, I think, outdated and exaggerated. According to a 2015 OECD study, the average number of missing teeth for UK adults was in fact, lower than in the USA, France, or Germany. In fact, a 2018 survey by the Oral Health Foundation found that Brits had some of the healthiest natural teeth in Europe, with the average adult having 6. 97 missing or decayed teeth, significantly fewer than in Germany, apparently. Although I have to say, I am quite surprised by how big that number is. While historically, the UK's focus has been more on functionality than extreme cosmetic widening, issues around NHS dental access do mean that some Brits have struggled with affordable treatment in recent years.
[00:02:55.670] - Oliver (Host)
In addition, many people fear the dentist completely and will go years without attending a checkup, or they'll only go under severe duress, under huge pressure. Incidentally, that's the way I've always felt about the hairdresser. I hate getting my hair cut. I hate the small talk during the process. I hate anxiously watching someone slowly butchers my haircut. At least at the dentist, you can't really have a chat. Although curiously, I found recently that the dentist always tries to talk to you asking you proper questions, not just yes or no questions, while his or her fingers are rummaging around in your mouth, making it totally impossible for you to reply. Is this something that has happened to you as well? Anyway, I'm digressing too much, I think. Now, personally, I actually really love going to the dentist. There are very few things I would rather spend my money on, and I do feel like it's money well spent, although it is getting incredibly expensive in the UK. And - this is perhaps crazy - I've actually gone to the same dental surgery for as long as I've had teeth. When I was living abroad, I used to time my trips home to coincide with when I needed to go and get a dental checkup. And even when I was living in the UK, I refused to get a dentist in London. I used to hop on the train all the way back to my hometown just to see my dentist.
[00:04:22.610] - Oliver (Host)
The reason I like going to the dentist, though, really, is because I think everyone secretly likes being praised. And I knew when I was little, the one way I could make my mum very happy and very likely to praise me was with my teeth. My whole life, my mum has been obsessed with teeth. I'm not really sure why. I don't know where it's come from, but I knew that I could be the golden child, my mum's favourite, by brushing my teeth assiduously. Every time I came bounding out of, running out from the dentist office with positive feedback, my mum would smile broadly, she'd give me a big smile full of pride. Even now, I'm pretty sure that if I called my mum up on the phone asking for a loan for a deposit for a flat or a business investment, she'd absolutely tell me to get lost, she'd flatly refuse. But if I needed some urgent work done on my teeth, she'd be there, wiring me the money in a second.
[00:05:21.430] - Oliver (Host)
But I have to say, I wasn't always praised at the dentist. To my shame, I did have a traumatic experience in the dentist chair when I was about 14. I must ingloriously admit that I actually had a filling when I was about 14 years old. A filling is a type of treatment where a hole in your tooth, one caused by damage or decay, also known as a cavity, is filled in, replacing the tooth's natural structure with something manmade. Now, according to a statistic, I found on a dental website online, 84% of all adults have at least one or more filling, and each adult has an average of seven fillings over the course of their entire life. Not in my household! Growing up, I knew that there was little that would displease my mother more than me getting a filling. So imagine the scene. A 14-year-old Oliver, lying in the chair; the dentist, who my mum loved because he was from Glasgow, just like her, and stereotypically tough and miserable, just like her, began to work on my teeth, examining them in minute detail. He began to tut, to make the noise of (tutting sound) in a disappointed way, something I had never heard in the dentist's chair before.
[00:06:37.300] - Oliver (Host)
My fingers gripped the arms of the chair and I began to sweat in fear and apprehension as he called my mum into the room to deliver the catastrophic news, her first child with a filling. The shame, the shame. She never let me forget it, and I've never let it happen again since then, but I'm not sure she'll ever trust me completely again in my life. Is that too much? But in fact, just having clean teeth wasn't enough for my mum. Most teens have braces, a piece of equipment to straighten their teeth, when they're about 13 years old. Fortunately, because everyone gets them at the same time, no one feels too uncool walking around with a mouthful of metal and plastic. I was lucky to have pretty straight teeth as a teen, but not quite lucky enough. My mum watched and she waited to see how they would turn out. Then, just as I was going into my final year of school, at exactly the time that I was starting to care about the way that I looked, starting to do my hair, starting to dress nicely, she convinced the dentist to give me braces. I do mean, convinced.
[00:07:48.910] - Oliver (Host)
My dentist was very sceptical, basically calling her crazy as politely as he could because she insisted that I have braces to correct a single tooth that my mother felt was a bit wolfy, a bit like a wolf's. I must admit, though, it was a good investment. Any time since then that someone has wanted to flirt with me, almost without exception, their opening line, their opening gambit has been about my teeth. If it weren't for my mum's obsession with dentistry, I may never have had a boyfriend in my life. But the thing about my mum's, and now my, obsession with teeth is that it is a delicate balance. It is very easy to go too far with teeth, in my humble opinion. Here, I'm thinking of the Hollywood smiles, all massive white veneers, too many teeth for one mouth. That level of perfection, I find quite overwhelming, quite off-putting, quite unattractive, actually. I think another interesting result of my mum's obsession with teeth is that I personally find it more attractive if someone has teeth that are not quite perfect. I think teeth that are not straight or have gaps between them or are just oddly shaped shaped, are actually much more attractive than perfect teeth.
[00:09:04.200] - Oliver (Host)
Then finally, teeth are a curious thing for me because, jokes aside and humour aside in this episode, it's not really all about vanity. I think it's one of those things that you only really miss when they're gone. What's more, issues with your teeth and jaw can have huge health implications. One of the charities I've donated money to in the past is a charity called The Smile Train. It fixes something called cleft palates because kids with this problem have difficulties eating, breathing, hearing, and speaking, as well as facing discrimination for having a facial difference. Teeth, jaws, mouths can have a massive impact on people's quality of life, but it's not something that people immediately think about when they want to make a donation. But hopefully, this will change. Thank you very much for listening.
[00:09:57.000] - Oliver (Host)
Hello, César. How are you?
[00:09:58.650] - César (Guest)
Hello, Oliver. I'm very well, thank you.
[00:10:01.050] - Oliver (Host)
How are your teeth?
[00:10:02.740] - César (Guest)
I hope they're good.
[00:10:04.060] - Oliver (Host)
With the amount that you spent on them recently, I hope so, too.
[00:10:07.620] - César (Guest)
I was thinking, I haven't brushed my teeth after lunch, and we had some paella.
[00:10:14.390] - Oliver (Host)
Well, did we...?
[00:10:16.770] - César (Guest)
Some, some kind of paella.
[00:10:18.200] - Oliver (Host)
We had rice.
[00:10:19.050] - César (Guest)
But I used some sauces, and one of them is very colouring. Ideally, you should brush your teeth after you use it because otherwise, your teeth get yellow.
[00:10:32.180] - Oliver (Host)
Well, I feel like despite... I've said that I have an obsession with teeth, and it's true, but I, like all of the topics that we talk about, feel very out of my depth in terms of actual knowledge, because you hear very contradictory things about how you should take care of your teeth in terms of you're not supposed to brush them too soon after eating sugar and stuff like that, right?
[00:10:52.170] - César (Guest)
Yeah, I've heard that about acidic food, like oranges, for example.
[00:10:58.050] - Oliver (Host)
So maybe it's the same about colouring. I don't that it could be counterproductive even to do it. But you've had a bit of a disaster with your teeth recently, no?
[00:11:09.210] - César (Guest)
In the UK?
[00:11:10.030] - Oliver (Host)
In the UK, yeah.
[00:11:11.250] - César (Guest)
Yeah, so basically, it was actually devastating.
[00:11:15.380] - Oliver (Host)
It's actually to interrupt, sorry, but it's like I said on the podcast, you only really miss your teeth when you have a problem with them, right? You only realise how important they are when you have a toothache, and then every time you bite something, it's painful. So I totally get what you mean. Tell us what was devastating?
[00:11:36.210] - César (Guest)
Well, one day I woke up and I realised that part of my teeth was gone. A small part of it, but I could notice it with my tongue.
[00:11:47.140] - Oliver (Host)
Weren't you on the bus?
[00:11:49.690] - César (Guest)
I can't remember. Maybe. I was eating something. I was actually eating something sweet because I've got a huge sweet tooth.
[00:11:57.130] - Oliver (Host)
I think you were on the bus, eating. Yeah. And you called me, yeah.
[00:12:00.740] - César (Guest)
Then I actually saw the piece of teeth missing. So I went to the dentist. For the first time, I went to the dentist in the UK. Not ever. When we were living in London, I used to come to the dentist in Spain because it's cheaper and -
[00:12:22.650] - Oliver (Host)
And you're happy with the service that they provided.
[00:12:25.230] - César (Guest)
I've been going to the same clinic for a while. But in this case, this was emergency. So I went to your clinic.
[00:12:33.020] - Oliver (Host)
Yeah, well, we say normally, we just say simply to the dentist, or I went to your dentist, or I went to your dentist's.
[00:12:40.290] - César (Guest)
Okay, so I went to your dentist.
[00:12:41.910] - Oliver (Host)
Really, it's a surgery. They call it a dental surgery.
[00:12:44.860] - César (Guest)
Okay, surgery. Anyway, the service was amazing, really professional, but it was really expensive. So I think I had a couple of fillings, but they had to reconstruct or rebuild the tooth. So it was almost £1,000.
[00:13:02.180] - Oliver (Host)
Wow. I didn't know that, actually. But I mean, this is... I must have known at the time, but it was an emergency. The UK is more expensive than Spain, anyway. I think it is a good clinic, but it is a good dentist. But I think when it's an emergency, you, I think often can pay less and have a quick fix, but it's not actually the sensible thing to do in terms of saving money in the long run. If you care about how it looks, then I think that you sometimes have to pay lots of money. Back in the day in the UK, I think lots more people got their teeth covered by the NHS, by the National Health Service. But now that's incredibly rare.
[00:13:49.460] - César (Guest)
I think in Spain, it's the same. You only get to cover the extractions. If you need to remove some teeth, that's free. But otherwise, you have to pay in a private dentist surgery. From that moment where I had to pay over £1,000, I was like, I really need to be more strict with my routine and it's not only about brushing and flossing, but also what you eat, what you drink, be more careful, be more mindful. Now in Spain, since it's cheaper, I've something I've been wanting to do for a while since we are preparing a new course for the Spanish section.
[00:14:39.730] - Oliver (Host)
In fact, focused on pronunciation.
[00:14:41.580] - César (Guest)
Exactly.
[00:14:42.100] - Oliver (Host)
So your teeth are going to be the stars of the course.
[00:14:45.790] - César (Guest)
Yeah. We might have some close-up on camera of my teeth. I was like, well, I've never "smoken", and I don't drink that much wine, but I drink a lot of coffee.
[00:14:55.750] - Oliver (Host)
You've never smoked. I think you said, I've never "smoken".
[00:14:59.620] - César (Guest)
That's the kind of...an American person would say?
[00:15:01.690] - Oliver (Host)
I think it's the thing that a child would say because it's... When children, a lot of the time, they're not sure... They kind of apply rules that are true for some words, more liberally. So they end up saying things like, "I bringed something to the party" instead of, I brought.
[00:15:22.890] - César (Guest)
I recently watched a video on Instagram where there was like a compilation of people, like English native speakers, struggling with the participle forms of the verbs. Anyway, I did this white teethening?
[00:15:40.650] - Oliver (Host)
You whitened your teeth.
[00:15:42.000] - César (Guest)
I whitened my teeth. For a while, for a week, I could eat only things that were white. It was the most boring diet ever. Rice, broccoli, tofu, no coffee, no wine, no soda, no...
[00:15:59.180] - Oliver (Host)
Because the issue was if you have just had your teeth whitened and you eat something with a lot of colour, your teeth end up that colour.
[00:16:07.680] - César (Guest)
Exactly, because after this treatment, your teeth need to rehydrate again.
[00:16:14.310] - Oliver (Host)
Rehydrate.
[00:16:15.100] - César (Guest)
Rehydrate again. They will try to get as much hydration as possible from anything you eat or drink. So if you have, like -
[00:16:23.280] - Oliver (Host)
An amazing Indian curry, it's very deep red, then you end up with blood-stained teeth.
[00:16:30.490] - César (Guest)
The part where I struggled the most was about not having coffee. I had to buy caffeine pills at the pharmacy.
[00:16:40.900] - Oliver (Host)
At that point, I would say maybe this has gone too far, César. Maybe if you're having to buy pills to get your dose of caffeine.
[00:16:49.670] - César (Guest)
Yeah, I'm actually super happy with the pills.
[00:16:52.260] - Oliver (Host)
Yeah, super happy, super productive. Everything done all the time, no problems.
[00:16:58.110] - César (Guest)
But no, I don't know who I told this (to), but I felt happier having these pills.
[00:17:04.940] - Oliver (Host)
You know, we can do an episode about drug addiction, César, but that's not what we're talking about today.
[00:17:10.260] - César (Guest)
Anyway, why do you think the NHS, the public system, the public health system and the Spanish health system is the same?
[00:17:19.690] - Oliver (Host)
Well, I think at the moment, I don't know enough about NHS financing, but I think that basically it's just a series of slow cuts of things that were included originally that are not included as well, because simply put, the country is much bigger. Everyone is living a lot longer and therefore needing holistic coverage of their health their entire lives, and the country just can't afford it. I think as the country ages and there are fewer young people paying to support older people with more considerable health needs, I think that things have to go. And teeth, obviously, are a very important part of health, but it's not important enough, especially with things like braces, which are not always, but often aesthetic. So something has to give.
[00:18:12.810] - César (Guest)
However, I've noticed over the last decade, braces, especially, and things like Invisalign, where you can get your invisible braces, I guess that's what it is. I'm not sure. More and more people are able to afford these treatments. I remember back in the day, in the '90s, if you want to state school in Spain, kids didn't have braces. If you go into a private school, half of the kids had braces because back in the day, it was really expensive to get braces to your kid.
[00:18:43.180] - Oliver (Host)
Well, I suppose what I see a lot now is adults having braces or having Invisalign. I didn't really pay attention to whether the kids had them when I was teaching, and it was a state school, so I don't know you might be right or not about a private and state division. But definitely lots of adults I know are getting braces and Invisalign. I don't know that I would agree that it means that people can afford it more or whether it's become a priority for people, especially because I think people now from a cosmetic from a aesthetic perspective, people do put more effort into things like teeth, that aspect of their appearance than they used to, because there's so much pressure nowadays in our generation to look nice all the time, in a very unrealistic way. So I think that people get Invisalign, people get their teeth whitened a lot more than people used to.
[00:19:37.220] - César (Guest)
What do you think of American films, Hollywood films, where you got this medieval story and the actors and actresses have the most, the whitest teeth with huge veneers and things like that?
[00:19:52.630] - Oliver (Host)
I don't know, but I think that at least one of our kings had wooden teeth, or maybe it was a President. Wasn't it George Washington, I think, had wooden teeth or something like that? Maybe the veneers from these films set in medieval times are actually just spectacularly well-painted wooden teeth. But yeah, I think that, obviously, I don't think you can expect people to neglect their teeth for months on end during filming to be as realistic as possible. To me, that sounds something like Christian Bale might do because he goes through all those amazing body changes, up and down, losing, gaining weight.
[00:20:32.960] - César (Guest)
He really goes to town with his acting.
[00:20:35.680] - Oliver (Host)
He does. He'd probably end up pulling out some of his teeth if it were effective for the role. But I don't think that you can expect people to do that. I But they have good makeup for teeth and make them look decaying and everything when they need to. But actually thinking about films and the fact that my mum gave me my obsession with teeth, I think I've actually started passing it on to to you, because now, after being together for eight years, eight and a half years, you frequently pause the TV to be like, look at that person's teeth. A lot of the time, the comment that you make is actually something that, like I said in the monologue, where you're like, in 2025, you're like, it's really refreshing to see someone, a Hollywood actor or actress, with their own teeth. Because back in 2005, I think everybody had veneers, basically, in Hollywood. And now you've got loads more people who are accepted as being really beautiful people, but with teeth that are not absolutely Hollywood perfect. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely.
[00:21:39.380] - César (Guest)
I think it is quite refreshing to see someone like, I don't know, I could mention a British actress like Emma Thompson, Emma Thompson.
[00:21:48.280] - Oliver (Host)
Emma Thompson. I think in the new series of White Lotus, the new season of White Lotus, incidentally in the UK, a lot of the time we say "series", where Americans say "seasons". Anyway, in the third series of the White Lotus, I think her name is Amy Lou Wood. She's the actress who's in the third season of White Lotus, and she was in Sex Education. She's got great teeth. I love her teeth.
[00:22:14.560] - César (Guest)
Very particular.
[00:22:15.820] - Oliver (Host)
Very particular. But there's no way that if she had been an actress in 2005 trying to make it, or in fact, successfully making it in Hollywood, there's no way the agents and the producers would have allowed her to keep those teeth. I love the fact that she's got those teeth. I think great. They're so much better than if she had them fixed.
[00:22:33.540] - César (Guest)
Sometimes when it comes to acting, you want to see some reality in the character, right?
[00:22:38.960] - Oliver (Host)
Exactly. It sounds very condescending, but good for Amy Lou Wood.
[00:22:45.040] - César (Guest)
Can you imagine if in five years' time, we're still recording, doing this podcast, all the podcasts, and we have huge veneers, extra white teeth and botox and fillers, and we are unrecognisable.
[00:23:03.230] - Oliver (Host)
Unrecognisable?
[00:23:04.830] - César (Guest)
Unrecognisable. Thank you.
[00:23:07.080] - Oliver (Host)
Yeah, it's a definite possibility, isn't it? Maybe we can work together to be reality checks, because I have the tendency for obsession about teeth, as we know. As I said already, I think it might be contagious. Anyway, thank you, César, for coming here and discussing my favourite topic. This is actually the second podcast we've done about teeth because we did one for the Spanish podcast, for which I'm actually wanting to do a sequel.
[00:23:35.890] - César (Guest)
It's becoming like an obsession.
[00:23:37.800] - Oliver (Host)
Well, it already is.
[00:23:39.410] - César (Guest)
Maybe you should create a podcast only about teeth. Like interviewing people about their teeth, their teeth journey.
[00:23:47.230] - Oliver (Host)
Yeah, well, I mean, don't joke, I might. With all my free time. So thank you very much, César. And listener, if you have teeth, please consider liking, sharing, subscribing, and everything like that because we rely basically on you doing those things for us to help the podcast to grow and help us produce episodes.
[00:24:14.060] - César (Guest)
Shall we finish with our best smile on camera?
[00:24:18.970] - Oliver (Host)
Well, actually, we should try to get the thumbnail. Looking psychotic. Okay, thank you very much. And goodbye.
[00:24:29.610] - César (Guest)
Bye..
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