My father and the curse of the golden egg
Lives Less Ordinary

My father and the curse of the golden egg

B1IntermediateJuly 6, 202640 min

Serena Kutchinsky was 10 years old when her jeweller father Paul unveiled his masterpiece to the world: a giant, golden, diamond-encrusted egg. Paul had recently taken over the family business, the celebrated London jewellers House of Kutchinsky, and wanted to make his mark, commissioning the production of a spectacular jewelled object like no other. The egg was crafted from 15kg of solid gold, decorated with over 20,000 rare pink diamonds, and put on sale for £7m – today’s equivalent of around $30m. After it was completed, the egg was finally unveiled to the public at Basel Art Fair in April 1990 before headi...

Play episode

Opens the player: the full transcript, every word clickable, with translation and flashcards.

Try it: tap any word

Real sentences from the start of this episode. Every word is marked with its level.

Sentence 1 of 12 · 0:00

.

How has America shaped the world? I'm Asma Khaled, host of the Global

Hear this sentence

Tap a word to see its meaning in your language.

Do you know these words?

8 harder words from this episode. Tap one to see what it means, then mark it.

  • B22:52
  • B26:37
  • C113:45
  • C117:22
  • B221:09
  • B227:56
  • B232:26
  • C239:26

Mark a few words and we'll tell you how this episode fits your level.

Is this episode right for you?

B1

B1 · Intermediate

Fine if you can follow simple news

A1 35%A2 35%B1 20%B2 9%C1 2%
  • 89% of the words are B1 or easier.
  • 178 words a minute: natural, fairly fast speech.
  • 192 harder words (B2 and up) in the whole episode.

Transcript

The opening of the episode. The whole transcript is in the player.

0:00

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. How has America shaped the world? I'm Asma Khaled, host of the Global Story podcast from the BBC. As the United States marks its 250-year anniversary, we've been exploring the surprising and often hidden ways the US has shaped the modern world.

0:21

And today on the show, we answer your questions about this moment and what to expect in the the years to come. From the BBC, it's the United States at 250. Listen to the global story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. I mean, the egg was absolutely breathtaking. It was forged from 15 kilograms of the finest

0:46

gold, set with 24,000 diamonds of which 20,000 were pinks. I mean, it was unprecedented. 40 years ago when Serena Kaczynski was a little girl, her father Paul, the heir to a celebrated London Jewelry firm, was consumed by a daring idea to create a giant golden egg. But not everything would go to plan.

That was the opening. The rest of the episode (39 min) is in the player: every word clickable, with translation, saved words and flashcards.

Continue in the player

Automatically generated from the audio. May contain errors. Audio belongs to its publisher and is played from their feed. Rights holders can request removal — copyright & takedown policy