听播客学英语 127 世界上没有这样古怪的乡亲

 　　In today’s podcast, we are going to meet three English expressions. The first one is “to get away with something”. If you do something bad, and nobody discovers what you did, or they do not find out that it was you who did the bad thing, then we can say that you got away with it. For example, if you murder someone, and the police do not catch you, then you have got away with it, or got away with murder.

　　And the second expression is “to make a fuss 1”. “To make a fuss” means to draw a lot of attention to something – for example, to complain about something that you do not like, or write letters to the newspapers about it, and tell everyone about it – in fact to shout about it, so that everyone turns round to look.
　　And the third expression ? Well, you will have to wait until the end of the podcast.
　　Here is a story, which has been a big story in the British newspapers recently.
　　It started five years ago, in 2002. Anne and John Darwin lived in a village on the north-east coast of England. John had a hobby. He liked exploring the sea coast near his home in a small boat called a kayak. One day he set off for a kayaking expedition. The weather was good and the sea was calm. But John did not return. The police and volunteers searched everywhere for him, without success. John had disappeared. A few weeks later, wreckage 2 from John’s kayak was found on the rocks. The police concluded that John had had a tragic 3 accident and that he was dead.
　　Five years later John walked into a police station in London. He told them that he thought he was a missing 4 person. He could not remember anything that had happened in the last five years – where he had lived, what he had done. The police however were suspicious 5. It was strange that John could remember who he was, and where he came from, but not what he had done in the last 5 years. And when the police tried to contact John’s wife, Anne, they found that she had recently sold her house and gone to Panama, in Central America.
　　The newspapers published stories about the missing kayak man who had miraculously 6 returned when everyone thought he was dead. Then a woman decided 7 to type the words “Anne” “John” and “Panama” into the Google search engine on her computer. She found a picture of Anne and John, taken a year ago. It it was on the website of a company which helps people who want to go and live in Panama. And then other people who had seen John during the last 5 years contacted the police. Some of them, it appears, knew that John was officially dead, but they did not say anything to anyone at the time because they did not want to make a fuss. (This is typical British behaviour. We do not like to make a fuss. So we do not complain about bad food in restaurants, we do not complain about poor service or high prices in shops, and we pretend not to notice when we meet someone who is supposed to be dead.)
　　For at least the last four years, Anne Darwin knew that her husband was alive. He was in fact living in a small flat in the house next to her house. He built a secret door between his bedroom and hers. He grew a beard, but a lot of the time, he did not hide. He did jobs around the house. He took the dog for walks on the beach. A few people thought they recognised him, but they thought “It is none of our business. Let’s not make a fuss.”
　　John and Anne got away with it for five years. If John had not walked into a police station last month, perhaps they might have got away with it for ever. They might have moved to Panama and lived the rest of their lives in that country.
　　Why did they do it? The police say that Anne used John’s alleged 8 death to claim money from an insurance company. And John had debt problems at the time he disappeared. The police have arrested Anne and John and charged them with fraud 9.
　　And now for our third expression. My mother came from the north-east of England, like the Darwins. When she heard of some peculiar 10 or stupid thing which people had done – like pretending to be dead – she would shake her head and say “Eeee, there’s none so queer 11 as folks”, which is Newcastle dialect 12 for “there is nothing as strange as people”.