Notes from a Small Island 2 of 7

Gabriel some of the tunnels are 80 feet high some are narrow and cramped some as big as banqueting halls some went a few hundred feet and then abruptly stopped Gabriel others linked into a network that has never been fully explored the cavern was just another underground tunnel but they found an alternative use for it and in doing so introduced Liverpool to my vocabulary I was a 13 year old schoolboy when news of the Beatles first reached my part of the world maybe that's why I didn't plant it itself in my mind to become my favorite English city maybe somewhere in a barn four young men are putting together a band that will put Iowa on the map in the same way then again maybe not nice when they take the trouble to make you feel at home ah you you'll be surprised to hear me say this but the British truly are the happiest people on earth who else after all would think it fun to grab some thousand-year-old reindeer antlers and caper about on a village green as an outsider there's nothing more pleasurable or heartwarming or surprising than to sit down and quietly watch the infinite unpredictable variations that go to make up the British at play all this may look a bit silly that's because it is a bit silly but embedded in these ancient traditions is something rather more profound a deep rooted in inventiveness where it comes to filling the moments between toil and sleep but with one very important twist no other nation has given the world more games than Britain football rugby golf tennis cricket nevermind that very often pretty generally in fact the rest of the world beat you at these games there's a reason for this I think unlike other nations the British almost never failed to forget that it is after all just a game maybe it's because I come from a place where winning all too often is everything that I like the relaxed low-key this is obviously not the most important thing in the universe nature of the highland games that Glenfinnan in a full day here I never once saw a stopwatch or a look that didn't have a smile just behind it I wouldn't like to say that the British are the only people in the world who would travel in large numbers to remote Highland glam stand in wind and rain and watch men in skirts flinging heavy objects around a boggy field but the British are the only people in the world who would travel their large numbers to remote given a choice between the sort of industrial east-german approach that leads to Olympic gold medals and the beguiling good-natured spirit of play that leads to this I'll take this and then there's cricket cricket is the only sport in the world that incorporates meal breaks it's almost the only sport other than perhaps baking in which you can dress in white from head to toe and be as clean at the end of the day as you were at the beginning there's some sports I just never understand but for those who think this is slow the third annual British pipe-smoking championship it's 42 grown men in a cricket pavilion each with a pipe a half ounce of shag two matches a little poking stick and a dream of national glory one of the few sports where you come first by coming lads so how's it going this year oh we still got more than 50% of the field still in what do they have to go to the 1-hour 16 and 32 seconds is your champion still up and running no Lawrence Moulton is out but if it is record holder is Len with a green cap there are two schools of thought on how to smoke a pipe competitively there is the British freestyle method where you smoke much as you would a normal pipe but slowly then there is the rather more earnest continental method known as ember chasing where you carefully advance a single glowing ember around the boy are they a seething mass inside though actually before this there is a lot there is a fair bit at the stake I mean it definitely has a sort of a senior's edge suffice it to say that the winner used the continental Ember chasing method and almost doubled the record to a little over two hours if there's one place in Britain that vasc sin records it's Blackpool Blackpool's beaches used to be among the dirtiest in Europe but it recently spent 300 million pounds cleaning them up now the turds Sparkle they don't boast about that but there are lots of other superlatives they take pride in it gets more visitors every year than grease and has more holiday accommodation than Portugal it leads the world in the per capita consumption of chips every day the town gets through 40 acres of potatoes and on Friday and Saturday nights it has more public conveniences than anywhere on earth elsewhere they call them doorways we didn't have seaside holidays when I was growing up largely because we didn't have a seaside from Iowa the nearest bit of ocean is a thousand miles in any direction perhaps that accounts for why I've never entirely understood the traditional British seaside holiday call me odd but sitting in a shelter or riding a tram is not my idea of a day to remember still I have to admit there's something about it that I find strangely appealing and all the more so now that the traditional seaside holiday is fast becoming a thing of the past when you're in Blackpool it's hard not to feel that you're walking through a piece of yesterday I happen to like yesterday's Phil counsel has been playing at the tower ballroom for 30 years and people come from all over to watch his organ rise ask anyone of a certain age what the tower ballroom used to be like and they will tell you it was heavy these days most of the heaving in Blackpool is on the pavements on Friday and Saturday nights imagine if golf were to fall out of fashion and you could have st. Andrews pretty much to yourself anytime you wanted that's what it's like for Fred & whinney smith ballroom dance fanatics home for them for six months of the year is a metal box with a beige racing stripe down the side they love it for here they find the good old-fashioned qualities of neighborliness and community that are increasingly elusive elsewhere hello Smith hello nice to see you very nice to see you my word you're a tall fella again hello it's the Smith how are you thank you so this is home is it lead to our second home is this yes a country home very relaxing and how much suited to your dispenser who live here early Apple Wow the end of October really enjoyed this area I'll do I'll do ground green bowling every day and it's only two minutes away from the cardig on side all of them that if it rains we went back booked our dancing and we're all there every Saturday keep losing winter we really enjoy our life around here so do you feel safer here than you do at home and goal definitely yes nice quiet area around here especially around a little area since a bit noisier in some towns Blackpool is atrocious but round here is like pre-war Britain 1938-39 especially Lydon very nice movable on this side very nice so why not just you know move to a place like this yeah well I won't move you know why not the last time I moved I said that is it your carpets on the floor for nine months that one no yes but that's in the past isn't it but they just understand I'm not allowed to move again Amma long as I get to avoid if I make red promising either tubby carpets on before we move then curtains as well curtains as well well that won't miss about woody last time I was in Blackpool I didn't like it at all now with the Sun out I have to say it doesn't look half bad but perhaps it only looks half bad Blackpool revels in being tacky but tacky with panache she's the Painted Lady of British seaside resorts where as you feel that Brighton went to finishing school Blackpool went to the school of hard knocks all Rudy should have been done with that it was brilliant said I watching football in the Zenon village I heard all about it they tell me it breeds a special kind of person a person for whom life takes on a certain tinge of excitement by being quite literally a drag I don't suppose the joys of the traditional seaside holiday will ever grab me now I don't need or want saucy postcards or kiss me quick hats or a sugar confection in the shape of a nipple you may keep cockles and welts and all the other semi edible creatures that live beneath the sand however magical that may be to others to me a man in a dress singing is well just a man in a dress singing but I wouldn't change a bit of it I mean that most sincerely I'm quite serious when I say that I think Blackpool ought to be a world heritage site I would hate to see it go just don't ask me to spend a holiday there Newcastle City Centre on the Saturday afternoon I get the feeling something is going on here perhaps an international chess congress or something no it's a football match of course from all the noise and commotion not to mention press coverage an outsider walk in the wrong way could be excused for thinking that this is the most popular leisure time activity in Britain or at least tyneside in fact now this is shopping in a full-season Newcastle United attracts crowds of around 1.1 million at the Metro Centre in Gateshead they get those kinds of numbers in a fortnight we used to build civilizations now we build shopping malls I'm continually astounded at how Britain has changed when I first came here in the 70s there were no shopping malls hardly anyone had credit cards or current accounts there were only about half as many Clara's as there are now indeed in those days people didn't actually drive their cars they just parked them in the driveway and buffed them up once a week or so people asked you if you were on the phone ravioli was an exotic foreign food a Big Mac was just a large raincoat now you can have pretty much whatever you want whenever you want it you've joined us Americans in creating a must-have society little 171 that's why I like bingo so much it harkens back to a simpler age and with payouts to match unlike the lottery which for most people raises hopes that haven't the slightest chance of being fulfilled bingo doesn't promise to change your life just enliven it for a bit buddy in 232 there's no question that Britain has become a much more dynamic Society but I can't help wonder if it hasn't paid a price for this the lottery and this is my problem with it represents a change in expectations the British have a particular relationship with small pleasures that I would hate to see spoiled New York Paris Packard Barrow 495 pounds very tempting indeed the British are the only people I know who could wonder if four wheels isn't excessive so say what you will about Robin reliant owners the one thing you can't normally accuse them of his delusions of grandeur that isn't to say that they can't have aspirations almost train spots that number around if er n't or even under well don't wear an anorak that them to wear Spanx I don't have a pen and a pencil book or anything by that the reason why I do it's a reason why I do it so you've read about it with class when did you start collecting and I've been tithing that long probably 10 years who's here everybody's interested in railways or just children up a bit less people don't dress their cars in the Librium it was just a bit of fun ready belly did you tease much about it yeah good where did this idiot well I think that the required honest it did not made the jokes and I expected a more sort of saying what a good job done and this sort think that you get many Maps have you won the lottery what would you go by yourself I find it that's a little private line divine duty engine for size ken white is the quintessence of what is best about the British he has a sense of humor he doesn't take himself too seriously and his ones are modest his hobby is a simple one he collects conductors hats and railway pens and tea pots and plates and safety manuals and platform posters mugs and maps ties and badges and tractors but he's right there isn't an anorak in the house his Lincolnshire home is sort of half toy shop half Museum so you run them even though you're not watching them yeah you know a community college town was given the wrong round room full of the psychos in it yeah it helps to like a good a new car ken spent hundreds and hundreds of hours building this model railway but that isn't his real passion his real passion is real railways so is it just the engines you're looking at or is it the polymer chain you know they were all trained you know like these freight liners you get a lot of freight liners but it you're looking for that just that unusual thing because I've got all the engines on British Rail anyway so it's a magic cat in the unusual if a certain engines been put on a a train way don't normally work that classes work different trains so you how would you stand on platform I think doll has 12 hours yeah sometimes well how many trains as you film can still have 292 hours of videos to watch I made my excuses and left I had to catch a ferry Windemere unofficial capital of the Lake District one of the most beautiful areas in Britain 12 million people a year come to the lakes that's four times as many people is visit Yellowstone National Park in America and in an area quarter of the size what the vast majority of the 12 million visitors do remember that's nearly a quarter of the entire population is as unselfish as it gets instead of wearing down the mountains they can find their activities too looking at knickknacks trying on woolens or deciding between a postcard of Big Ben or st. Paul's to send to friends in London before pausing to consider buying a souvenir walking stick for the long hike back to the car park bonus has 32 places where you can buy a knitted tie your try and get something that's life sustaining and you'll struggle or bakery makes a change Britain hasn't got any of the world's great geographical masterpieces I mean the big ones and let me say right now you don't need them how ridiculous would Everest sit if it were in East Anglia the Grand Canyon would cut the country in half the Amazon Delta would consume Wales so nothing big nothing long but you have got legendary fell runner of Joss Naylor a man who's never led the restrictions of living on a small island holding back Joss has done the equivalent of scaling Everest simply by running up the seventy tallest mountains in the Lake District did I say simply he did it in a single day Wow in the States there are on average 68 people for every square mile in France its 256 in Britain its 600 although it doesn't seem like that when you swap the high street for the high land just about daily for the past half century Joss has run over the Lakeland Fells not letting the little things stop him like the weather sharing a hundred sheep or as on this occasion a broken rib I can't drive I've been bet on the third date here you are running up a but now I took a painkillers morning which wore off now like you coming it's a bit of an ocean jelly well you do seem a kind of indestructible guy you do mind my asking how old do you know hey sixty two sixty two and you've just run up a hill that's how tall oh it's it's just over 2,000 feet about today or tonight how tough is it here the winner it looks lovely here today what's it like here bunny in winter I've got the tendency to keep up a lot of ridge-running you know unless it is dry and sunny weather because even when it's rain in the bottom here and you get up there it's maybe you know I would say 10 15 degrees colder and maybe I think I'll go over that bike and probably the last 200 feet is love that black ice on because of the the coolness up there and it can be very very dangerous like you know one of the runs in the in 1976 7675 was a 24-hour in the logistic 20 to 23 hours 11 minutes I think was some like a londone7 mile and there was 37,000 feet of a percent and I went up and down 72 mountains how does it feel afterwards great great I'm human milk the cow on did it - what did you I enjoy the term fell running if only because it's enough to confuse about 98% of my fellow countrymen there's one other British outdoor pursuit which has an equally enchanted name and provides an insight into the national character the South Africans track New Zealanders Germans hike but the British and the British alone ramble just the very sound of it is a mild form of exercise for your tongue nothing too strenuous like expedition it conjures up a stroll of sensible proportions one without the need of a compass or overnight survival gear where the target at the end of the day isn't some lofty peak but a tearoom but for a real day out you can't beat the British seaside that unique combination of wind and rain sand and boardin I avoided all four with Victoria Wood did you go to the seaside when you were kid we went to Blackpool and we went to Fleetwood and all places on the filed coast across from where we lived in Manchester I used to drive over she used to go every year I mean that was your annual holiday no we used to do that for days out for holidays we went in the caravan and went to broad usually but if we wanted if we wanted to run out we went to the season do you go to the seaside with your own kids I don't usually I did take them to Weymouth the other day and it was freezing cold and the waves were whipping up the beach and they had a fantastic time they did that terrible British thing of getting in their underwear and then walking around in wet knickers the rest of the day and getting boom I don't know I wish we would like to turn blue on the holidays but it

Channel: Rob Thomas

Views: 51,949

Rating: 4.8271604 out of 5

Keywords: Bill Bryson (Author), Notes From A Small Island (Book)

Id: FnkO6dSsXas

Length: 22min 41sec (1361 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 24 2015