Explaining and describing the culture of the English seaside experience, with James.

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I’m coming to the LEPster meetup on Sunday 28 July 2019. See you there?

Where? The Fitzroy Tavern near Oxford Street & Tottenham Court Road. Full address is 16 Charlotte Street, London W1T 2LY. Put the postcode into your google maps app (or equivalent) and it should direct you there.
When – 2PM on Sunday 28 July (that’s this coming Sunday)
The host is Zdenek Lukas – you’ll recognise him in the pub because he will be the guy with the board games. If you’re coming please just send Zdenek an email to let him know you’ll be there so he has an idea of how many people to expect. teacherzdenek@gmail.com

Introduction Transcript

Hello listeners, how are you? Here is the second of a pair of episodes that I recorded a couple of weeks ago while I was on holiday with my family in England. That’s the same holiday during which I got the two flat tyres that you heard all about in the last episode.

During the holiday, my wife, our daughter, my parents and my brother all travelled down to the south coast of England, where we spent some time at the beach in places like Lyme Regis, Seaton, West Bay and other parts of the Jurassic Coast as it is called. Yes, the Jurassic Coast. Not Jurassic Park – no because that’s not a real holiday resort is it? it’s just a film you see. No, we spent a week on the Jurassic Coast.

What’s the Jurassic Coast? I hear you ask. Are there dinosaurs there?

Here’s a quick extract from Wikipedia which should explain.

The Jurassic Coast is a World Heritage Site on the English Channel coast of southern England. It stretches from Exmouth in East Devon to Studland Bay in Dorset, a distance of about 96 miles, and was inscribed on the World Heritage List in mid-December 2001.

The site spans 185 million years of geological history, coastal erosion having exposed an almost continuous sequence of rock formation covering the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.

At different times, this area has been desert, shallow tropical sea and marsh, and the fossilised remains of the various creatures that lived here have been preserved in the rocks.

Basically, there are loads of fossils to be found there, including dinosaurs.

But anyway, I digress there into pre-history. But speaking of ancient creatures, more recently, my family had an English coastal holiday on the Jurassic Coast. Yes, the weather was fantastic. Blue sky, sunshine, not too hot. Just right. While we were there James and I decided that it might be a good idea for us to record a podcast all about the English seaside experience.

What is it really like at the beach in England? What kind of beaches can you find there? What are the typical things that happen at the beach? What sort of things can you see and do there? What is the culture and history of the English seaside?

That is what we attempted to achieve in this episode. I say attempted, because it was actually quite difficult, mainly due to the conditions in which we recorded the conversation.

I recorded this in my parents’ living room, quite late at night after everyone else had gone to bed. We’d eaten a fairly heavy meal (my Mum is a great cook and so we always completely stuff our faces while staying with my parents). Also the holiday had been quite active with lots of sun and fresh air, and of course we had spent a long and tiring day on our unexpected road trip the day before.

As a result the “vibe” of the episode is quite sleepy and generally quite low energy.

In fact, James, who was sitting on the sofa, became steadily more horizontal as the recording went on. At one point he even lies down to continue podcasting in the foetal position with his eyes closed.

I can get quite frustrated and irritable sometimes while recording with James because I’m trying to produce nothing less than top top quality English podcast content for my international audience of listeners and I sometimes fear that his general sleepiness will be interpreted, by you, as a lack of enthusiasm, and I wouldn’t want that on the podcast would I?

So, at certain moments you’ll hear me getting quite angry and actually I very nearly gave up the recording at one point, but James assured me that he wasn’t about to fall asleep and that he would, at the very least, keep his eyes open in an effort to stay conscious while podcasting.

There is some strong language – that means swearing, and just other moments when I start having a go at James a bit, showing my irritation and trying to keep the energy up.

I could have edited those bits out, but I’ve chosen to keep them in because, having listened back to this recording, I actually think they’re quite funny and entertaining. After all, I want my podcast to be authentic and what’s more authentic than the sounds of genuine bickering between two brothers?

In any case, there are only a few moments of mild arguing and swearing, which is quite normal between James and me, but you know, we love each other really and as I said before I now only really want to express my gratitude to James for agreeing to be a guest on the podcast again, when he probably just wanted to go to bed.

So, anyway let’s begin. So come with us now as we enter my parents comfortable living room, late on a warm evening in July as James and I raid our dad’s drinks cabinet, share a glass of scotch whiskey together and attempt to explain the sights, sounds and perhaps smells of the English seaside, in all its glory…

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Sandy beaches
Pebble beaches
Upmarket beach towns
Fishing towns
Working class seaside resorts
Sticks of rock
Cockles and mussels
Seagulls
End-of-the-pier entertainment
Fish and chips
And more…

Rude (and often very sexist) old English seaside postcards

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHyADGPIOoE

A Punch & Judy Show (a modern version, with less violence! Yes, it’s pretty weird.)

Pictures

If we missed anything – let us know in the comment section.

Ending Transcript

So there you have it – we managed to talk about the English seaside while maintaining consciousness throughout!

I’d like to thank James again for his participation and for not falling asleep at any point.

Listening back to that, I didn’t sound like I was frustrated at all, right? I thought I’d got more angry and irritated than that, but all-in-all it was a nice one, wasn’t it?

I hope you liked it and that it gave you a flavour of what it’s like to visit the beach in England.

Have a look at the page for this episode on the website. You’ll find some visuals there and also a transcript for the intro and this ending bit.

Just a reminder before we go – there is a LEPster meetup happening in London this coming Sunday (28th July 2019) from 2PM at the Fitzroy Tavern near Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road – the postcode for your google maps app (or equivalent) is W1T 2LY

Full Address: 16 Charlotte St, Fitzrovia, London W1T 2LY

And yes, I can confirm that I will be coming too, probably with James himself and a couple of friends of ours.

If you’re coming, let the meetup host know. That’s Zdenek. You can email him at teacherzdenek@gmail.com just to let him know. If you’re wondering which one he is – he’ll be the guy with the board games.

Hope to see you there. I might only be able to stay for a little bit – perhaps an hour or so, but it would be good to meet you and we can chat in English a bit, perhaps have a drink, maybe play a board game… we will see.

Also, Premium subscribers – I am working on some material for you which will arrive soon. That’s going to contain the usual language teaching to help you improve your vocab, grammar and pronunciation.

If you’re interested in becoming a Premium subscriber go to teacherluke.co.uk/premium and you can sign up there, then use your login details to sign into the LEP app to listen to the premium episodes. You can also check your subscription details by logging into your account from a computer – just go to teacherluke.co.uk/premium, click the three lines in the top left corner and then log in. Also, any technical support issues that you have – email support@libsyn.com and make sure you mention that you are a subscriber to teacherluke’s premium content. Teacherluke is the name you’ll need to use to make sure they know which service it is.

OK then, so, until next time I shall bid ye farewell in the usual way by saying “Goodbye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye!”