His first (shocked) Blackpool observation as we drove around
the back of the tower trying to find our Guest House and a car park: ‘I
don’t know the English word for it, errr maybe cheap’ ‘tacky?’ I said, he agreed.
A positive point was the Guest House, the Carlton on Albert
Road, great position behind the Tower (a few minutes’ walk away) and it looked
like it was recently decorated, no 1960s gross wallpaper and a flat screen
television but it still had some Blackpool personality. Monsieur X is more used to the Carlton Hotel
in Cannes and the next morning when his breakfast was served by a man wearing
shorts and t-shirt he said ‘this would not happen in France’.
I know Blackpool looks better in the dark but I wanted this
Frenchman who lives in the beautiful South of France countryside near the coast
to see why so many English people visit the Mediterranean Sea in the summer. Still shocked we walked to the end of the
North Pier a perfect location for any zombie/end of the world films to be made.
There was just the two of us, an elderly couple and man ‘working’ on the
carousel, it wasn’t a surprise he had no customers on this cold and windy day. Monsieur
X said ‘It’s like I’m back in ze 1970s’ and looking down onto the brown
sea ‘ah
ok I understand why the English go to France and Spain for holidays no blue here’.
I think we had only been in Blackpool for an hour and he
needed a Guinness and a siesta to reduce his fear factor level from 10. But in
a hotel bar opposite the Carlton, we witnessed two drunken old ladies showing
Monsieur X that the drunken young English people he has seen in Spanish beach
and French Ski resorts don’t actually grow out of the binge drinking habits.
Old Lady A fell over in the bar and has she was helped up by other people in
the bar, her friend Old Lady B said ‘watch her hip, she’s just had a new one’ –
this was at 4pm. He fear level went back up a few numbers.
The evening opened his eyes to many sights mostly unsightly,
yes the illuminations was interesting ‘just like Christmas lights in the street but
lots of them’ he said, but the hen do groups dressed in onesies, a
middle-aged large women wearing a teenager’s summer short dress or the ‘pièce de résistance’ would have to be the six women still in their
leopard print pyjamas with unbrushed hair sitting on the step outside their
hotel having a cigarette the next morning.
I’m finding it hard to remember if Monsieur X
enjoyed any of this time in Blackpool.
He liked the tower and the ‘comedy blanket’ on the sea front. I introduced him to the world of money
waterfalls, where you waste your 10p or 2p coins hoping to win and you can’t go
to an English seaside town and not have fish and chips on a Friday, so Harry
Ramseden’s was a must and he did finish off his large portion and the bottle of
wine.
Has we left the town behind, he said ‘Please
don’t bring me back here’. Ah oui at least Birmingham will look good
now.
Blackpool: Merde!