The British seaside: Dud or dud?

Does anyone remember when they tried to revive that CITV show called Knightmare back one summer in the mid-'90s with a one-off Seaside special?

Gameplay was more or less the same - one guy had to walk around the levels while his teammates guided him with instructions from afar, except instead of a large viking helmet he wore an outsized kiss-me-quick hat and carried a stick of rock. Tregard was dressed in a lifejacket and sat quite high up in an adirondack chair, helping the team with cautions like "Warning team, the tide is coming in!" and then you'd hear a ship's horn blow in the distance, a bit like when the hobgoblins would come in the original. I remember they managed to get rid of a fearsome dog walker with "Spellcasting: J-E-L-L-Y-F-I-S-H".

Shame it didn't really take off. My mate reckons they also did a 1978 version where you carried a fondue set and wore a huge permed wig, but I don't believe him.

I think that the connotation of deckchairs and funfairs and sand castles etc is definitely strong with 'seaside', but I can't think of an alternative word for 'bit of land next to the sea'. Maybe just 'sea'? Or 'coast', I guess?

Definitely look for the same thing as you, KDT. The vastness gives me the fear, but in a beautiful way.

xpost no! Are you sure that's real? I've always thought they should revive Knightmare, though. I loved that shit.

Britain has some great moody tempestuous bits of sea.

Well, we are surrounded by the stuff

Coast, yes.

The Coast will do. "Going for a run to the Coast", I'm sure we used to do that on a Sunday back in the day.

"coast" or "seashore" for the Romantic bits. or even "strand" eh? I guess "seaside" is too close to "Oh I Do Like to Be Beside the" for me to shake the resort connotations

... run in the car, in case there's any confusion. When I think of Ayrshire, which is where we used to go a run to, then I think "Coast" not "Seaside"

"Seaside" to me is yes, wurlitzers, crap fairground rides, icecreams and deckchairs, kind of creepy/depressing '60s locarno kitchen sink stuff. "Beach" is B-52s spastic post-punk jellyfish wabbing. "Coast" is rocks and rain and Scottish people in anoraks telling you about "the awesome power of the sea" and shit.

B-52s spastic post-punk jellyfish wabbing

OK, fair enough. Understand the distinction.

Definitely more of a The Coast fan than a Seaside fan then.

For me, emil.y it's more like it *removes* THE FEAR from me, in a beautiful way. Like all the petty problems that buzz around my head and fill up my consciousness, they just evaporate, because in 200 years, 500 years, this sea will still be here, but everything I've ever done, and even this lump of rock I'm standing on, it will all be eroded away and that is just so comforting and calming and gives one a real sense of perspective.

I think that's what Romantic poets used to call The Sublime before appreciation of that became Quite So Utterly Utter.

B-52s spastic post-punk jellyfish wabbing

Give me rocks and rain and Scottish people in anoraks any day.

Scottish people in anoraks

Not the fuggin' Pastels again

I actually really like the seaside aesthetic though. I also like the spastic B-52s jellyfish wabbing, despite living very much in land. When I eventually start this band, we're going to take direct influence from "Rock Lobster" and The Special's "Friday Night, Saturday Morning", thus marrying both the American beach and the British seaside. Maybe add a toxic take on South Pacific too. We will rule the waves.

a littoral--maritime themed british indie band seems like a really amazing and novel idea

Not the fuggin' Pastels again

http://www.open2.net/open2static/source/file/root/0/58/52/240936/neilscotland.jpg

"The past is a disaster now (preferably with TALL SHIPS crashing into LIGHTHOUSES)
The future's coming faster now (automated foghorns)
Let's just go and get a beer (make mine a Doombar)"

When I eventually start this band, we're going to take direct influence from "Rock Lobster" and The Special's "Friday Night, Saturday Morning", thus marrying both the American beach and the British seaside.

http://www.chartstats.com/image/r8411_300.jpg

Do find it's odd how Coast has made all this sort of thing almost-fashionable again, but still not quite.

Perfectly happy with this state of affairs tbh.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/4/19/1271691257621/Blackpool-beach-in-1982-b-001.jpg

I'm gonna get that blown up and stuck on my wall. Actually, might just use it as a desktop background, same difference IG.

haha! that dog's having a wazz! YESSS!

It is Chris Steele-Perkins, I went to the exhibition, and that one was my favourite

Martin Parr does some good seaside pics too

http://bp0.blogger.com/_023w4hdG0iI/RkANGps474I/AAAAAAAABzg/vdWoTKONP2s/s1600-h/Martin_Parr_The_Last_Resort_1145_67.jpeg

http://blog.happyfoto.at/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Fotoausstellung-in-Wien_Martin-Parr.jpg
http://www.seminario.edu.uy/bibliowp/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/mp3imagen1.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_TSMBHnhrP4Y/TUbqnBapo1I/AAAAAAAAApM/Cn5yfnoI174/s1600/IMG.jpg

was it martin parr who released those books of boring postcards too? (love all these photos btw)

I think so, try an image search for john hinde, for postcards

Yes it was...he did 3 of them (boring, boring USA, and boring Germn postcards)

He also compiled a book of Butlins postcards (from John Hinde as Proger mentions)which is excellent.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41N5gSUU%2BoL._SS500_.jpg

I prefer these to his actual photos tbh, which seem to border on 'LOL working class people', although tbf he does also do 'LOL rich people' and 'LOL people who want to be middle class'.

As for Martin Parr, I am not sure he has an agenda to mock working-class people having days out, it is more a "what are people like?" in glorious technicolor.

http://www.dimagemaker.net/ktml2/images/uploads/exhibit/parr/509.jpg?0.24452934250892122

http://www.hipshots.co.uk/images/parr3.jpg

Some of his stuff I like, some I am not sure about, but I know they are all better than any pics I take. But I always like the seagull one http://dbprng00ikc2j.cloudfront.net/work/image/104974/qg7swq/Seagulls.jpg as something you see in every UK seaside town and probably have done every day for 60 years or so.

yeah i don't necessarily see mockery so much as ultra-candid frozen moments. the old couple in the caff is very tender in a way.

I've actually met him and he says "yeah, i totally am taking the piss, I mean have you seen these people...disgusting savages imo"...no, he didn't say that he gave a very eloquent and thoughtful answer to a similar question (not from me, but from someone who who articulate proper) much along Noodles lines - and, it's a fair point that this is what it actually looks like sometimes. But I'm still a bit uneasy with a lot of them. Maybe I've seen so many similar pics that it seems too easy? I don't know, I'm rambling.

Anyway, I do admire his ability to get up close though. Ballsy without being obnoxious.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulrussell/303499383/

Woman "Don't look now love but I think that bloody Martin Parr is behind us"

Man "He's been at it all day, lets just get it over with"

Woman "I'll look northern and you say something parochial"

Man "right. Aye up lass, take in that bracing air, you'll sleep well tonight."

Woman "good, I think he's gone"

Man "Oh shit...look who is coming now. it's that damn Alan Bennett and he has his notebook out. I had better start reciting Alfred and the Lion.

Albert sorry. Used to hear it a lot in Filey.

There's a famous seaside place called Blackpool,
That's noted for fresh-air and fun,
And Mr and Mrs Ramsbottom
Went there with young Alberttheir son.

A grand little lad was their Albert
All dressed in his best; quite a swell
'E'd a stick with an 'orse's 'ead 'andle
The finest that Woolworth's could sell.

They didn't think much to the ocean
The waves, they was fiddlin' and small
There was no wrecks... nobody drownded
'Fact, nothing to laugh at, at all.

So, seeking for further amusement
They paid and went into the zoo
Where they'd lions and tigers and cam-els
And old ale and sandwiches too.

There were one great big lion called Wallace
His nose were all covered with scars
He lay in a som-no-lent posture
With the side of his face to the bars.

Now Albert had heard about lions
How they were ferocious and wild
And to see Wallace lying so peaceful
Well... it didn't seem right to the child.

So straight 'way the brave little feller
Not showing a morsel of fear
Took 'is stick with the'orse's 'ead 'andle
And pushed it in Wallace's ear!

You could see that the lion didn't like it
For giving a kind of a roll
He pulled Albert inside the cage with 'im
And swallowed the little lad... whole!

Then Pa, who had seen the occurrence
And didn't know what to do next
Said, "Mother! Yon lions 'et Albert"
And Mother said "Eeh, I am vexed!"

So Mr and Mrs Ramsbottom
Quite rightly, when all's said and done
Complained to the Animal Keeper
That the lion had eaten their son.

The keeper was quite nice about it
He said, "What a nasty mishap
Are you sure that it's your lad he's eaten?"
Pa said, "Am I sure? There's his cap!"

So the manager had to be sent for
He came and he said, "What's to do?"
Pa said, "Yon lion's 'eaten our Albert
And 'im in his Sunday clothes, too."

Then Mother said, "Right's right, young feller
I think it's a shame and a sin
For a lion to go and eat Albert
And after we've paid to come in!"

The manager wanted no trouble
He took out his purse right away
And said, "How much to settle the matter?"
And Pa said "What do you usually pay?"

But Mother had turned a bit awkward
When she thought where her Albert had gone
She said, "No! someone's got to be summonsed"
So that were decided upon.

Round they went to the Police Station
In front of a Magistrate chap
They told 'im what happened to Albert
And proved it by showing his cap.

The Magistrate gave his o-pinion
That no-one was really to blame
He said that he hoped the Ramsbottoms
Would have further sons to their name.

At that Mother got proper blazing
"And thank you, sir, kindly," said she
"What waste all our lives raising children
To feed ruddy lions? Not me!"

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRdHS9mztSkLovkSK99PirEf-Je9ePiBHciQSqBd-xpTCc3CnSJdg&t=1

More "coast" than "seaside" but has anyone been to the islands off Pembrokeshire?

went to Caldey Island as a wee child, memories are mixed up with other places but I know there was a monastery and you could walk there when the tide was out and i got a sweet patch for the back of my Wrangler jacket.

Ah, yes, have similar childhood memories. Except the patch.

was there a monkey sanctuary there or was that somewhere else?

my girls were fascinated that monks wore crocs. monkey sanctuary is on the mainland, near kilgetty iirc

yeah it's quite possible. we stayed in Tenby for a fortnight, think it was the summer of 76? i sunburned my legs so bad early on that i had a day when i couldn't walk on them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KQ6Wmbi5ig&feature=related

Get back to basics my friends.

My father in law point blank refuses to believe that that track is about anything other than how sticky rock gets. "We didn't sing about those kinds of things back then." I tried to play him "Shave 'em Dry" but he put his fingers in his ears and went 'la la la'.

I am not sure if Fornby wrote his stuff, but the song is surely less than innocent.

Wd've thought so, it seems in the vein of the old music hall tradition, like the Fella that Played the Trombone or Cock-a-doodle-doo, barely a comic song that didn't have that sort of innuendo.

I think he was a latter day arctic monkeys, but with better backing tunes. It was the george Fornby subterranean homesick blues lyrics stolen by Bob Dylan, that I remember best. The genius of Fornby and Morris.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8d9C5KHP5z0

Well the whole sketch is genius, but I think most of the ILX people out there are aware of it.

With my little stick of Blackpool Rock, along the promenade I stroll
In the ballroom I went dancing each night
No wonder every girl that danced with me, stuck to me tight...

Yes, Formby did write his own lyrics (mostly). It was actually banned by the BBC (or rather unplayed, I think they still persist with the myth that they didn't ban songs) because of its suggestive lyrics.

(actually Formby's lyric writing is not quite as straightforward as I though - http://www.georgeformby.org/biography/records-songs-films/)

there is no evidence that Formby even contributed, let alone actually wrote any of the songs synonymous with him and his ukulele, and plenty of evidence that he didn’t. He and Beryl would insist that his name be added to the songwriting credits, thereby earning him a nice bite of the royalty pie

Does anyone remember when they tried to revive that CITV show called Knightmare back one summer in the mid-'90s with a one-off Seaside special?

This... cannot be true...

Sadly I wish it were. Sorry for getting yr hopes up :-/

:(
Spellcasting J-E-L-L-Y-F-I-S-H lol tho

*Falling Foss, that is

That looks so idyllic. I cannot possibly express how much I want to be sitting outside a tea room in a forest right now.

Should go back through the thread to check but ... any recommendations for St David's or thereabouts?

A little way away but we used to go to the Fishguard area for summer holidays when I was a kid; went back a few years back and I was left with two lingering impressions:
(1) the Fishguard Arms is one of the best pubs I've ever been in
(2) I really loved re-visiting the beach at Cwm-yr-Eglwys - it's a tiny village in a little bay with not much there but a v nice beach and a little ruined chapel. Not the canonical British seaside with the amusements and saucy postcards out whatever but very pleasant indeed.

Not sure if you're interested in Neolithic shit but there are some good standing stones / quoits / etc in that neck of the woods too.

Nice one - thanks.

my recommendation is not to camp on the cliffs, I can assure you that it's a terrible idea.

Not sure what kind of information you're looking for. The whole area is beautiful and highly recommended. I used to go there on holidays a lot in the late 1990s and early 2000s, often staying in Solva (a few miles along the coast from St David's), or in St David's itself at least once. More recently, I stayed in Tenby in 2012. That area is further away but equally beautiful and part of the National Park. Then, I stayed in Fishguard (or rather Goodwick) in 2015. I haven't been back since but would like to soon.