1075 The Sea at Blackpool Transcript

Hello everyone and welcome again to another Teacher Joseph podcast.

For the last few days I’ve been on holiday in the North of England and the sea is battering against the barrier behind me. I’m in a hotel room and I have a sea view: a view of the sea, but it’s very, very rough and I can see it hitting against the barrier, wanting to jump onto the road. Well, you may hear it behind me or at least you might hear the wind.

I’ve been here for the last few days. As you might know all of Britains’s public holidays are actually transferred to the following Monday. So if you for example have a holiday on a Wednesday, then automatically it’s moved to the next Monday to avoid any break in the working week. So today is Bank Holiday Monday when I’m recording this. Although you’ll probably get to hear it on Tuesday, I would imagine. We always do this with our holidays. We move them from during the week to the next available Monday. I think the exception is Christmas, which always lands on the correct day and Easter is always a Monday anyway.The Easter Monday holiday.

So yes, this has been nice. I came here on Friday and I’m leaving today, which is Bank Holiday Monday. So let me just describe the sea for you. Oh my goodness me. It really is a stormy sea today, very grey looking, reflecting the clouds in the sky. And those waves look like they’re just about to jump up and drag anyone who’s passing by, into the water.

Now I came here with a special deal in this hotel where I’m living. I’m in a place called Blackpool, staying here for a few days: because it’s only a few days the correct verb is to stay … yeah, so they had this deal: Eat as much as much as you want, for the weekend. So of course they’d be sorry they met me because I’ve eaten everything in sight and but what I didn’t know when I arrived it was also drink as much as you want all weekend. And as a result. The people here in this hotel have all been white English class males. Very interesting. I I didn’t know that this area was very popular only with English people. So of course, as you can imagine, there’s long queues at the bar every night, but strangely very calm because the people who are here are older. I haven’t seen any young people. And they all look terribly overweight, very traditional English people. I don’t see those kinds of people very often. So it’s been very interesting to be amongst them and observe their behaviours, but there’s not a lot to observe really, except people drinking heavily and not really saying very much. And eating a lot as well.

Anyway, getting back to the sea behind me, it really is beautiful. I mean, I have to say very, very rough. And the waves are really coming in and battering against the the barrier, there’s a pier in the distance. A pier of course, is one of these manmade constructions which jut out into the sea. That’s called the the pier. So very nice. Very nice.

I didn’t make podcasts when I was away (in the past), of course, just in case you decided to visit my home and steal my television. But my little cat has been doing fine. I’ve been watching him on my video Cam and he has his own veterinary nurse who comes into look after him twice a day.

Yes, there’s a tram system in operation here in Blackpool that’s also very interesting. I don’t get to see those very often.

But looking now, completely grey sea. White foam on the top, moving rather fast. Probably going to cause traffic delays later if those waves continue to jump up over the barrier. And yes, yes, very nice. Uh, very nice view. Perhaps a metaphor for the way British people handle their emotions. Always very calm and the surface but raging underneath. And there we are.

Yeah…. so lovely time in Blackpool. I’d recommend it. It has a fake Eiffel Tower here, which is really bizarre, and underneath that they have a big ballroom where ballroom dancing takes place. It really is very kitsch, very white and very English. It’s unusual to see places like that anymore. And the food was delicious, of course.

And that’s it for me. So I hope you’ve enjoyed this and I’ll be back home and recording more podcasts later this week. See you all. Bye.