Trip Down Memory Lane with Rock n' Roll English - British English Podcast

You are listening to the English Like A Native Podcast.

This is not your typical English language learning resource.

No, there are no textbooks.

There are no grammar rules.

Instead, you just have the weird and wonderful version of English

that you'll hear spoken in the UK.

So tune in for your daily dose of very ordinary chatter with

a very ordinary English girl.

I'm your host, Anna, and today we have a very special guest, the host of

podcast Rock n' Roll English,

which is very funny.

You should check it out.

Yes, today we have Martin with us and we are going to be discussing our thoughts

on the changing British High Street.

Now, I must also mention before I bring Martin in, that I was a guest on his

podcast and we had a very interesting chat about the differences between

the North and the South of England.

So make sure you tune into that.

I'll put the links in the description of this particular podcast episode.

So without further ado, let me introduce Martin.

So, hi Martin, how are you?

Hello, Anna.

Very well, thanks.

Thanks for having me on.

Oh, thank you so much for joining me.

So, Martin, you have your own podcast, Rock n' Roll English.

Firstly, the

name Rock n' Roll English,

are you a rock 'n' roll kind of guy?

Are you a musician of sorts?

I obviously get this question a lot and I do kind of feel a bit

stupid now for choosing that name.

If I really think about it, the name was just,

'Oh, that sounds cool.

I'll just use that.'

In time, I've then since added, I'm not even sure if this story is true, but

it's a kind of rock 'n' roll spirit, like be who you want, say what you want.

But yeah, am I a musician?

No, unfortunately.

So what brought you into podcasting?

'Cause you've been at it for quite a while now.

Yeah, I have.

It still seems to me, 'cause as I mentioned to you

in our pre-podcast chat,

I still have no idea what I'm doing.

So it still seems to me like I'm a newbie.

But obviously in this online world we live in, things move quite quick.

So I've been doing it now for six and a half years, a little bit longer.

And yeah, I was a big podcast fan, like I still am.

And I kind of just thought, you know what, I fancy having a go at this.

And I also, obviously I was teaching English anyway, and I never really had

lots of, or much good listening material to give to my students and I actually

recorded the first probably 10 episodes that I didn't, like, publish anywhere,

I literally just sent them manually via email to students and they all said,

"Oh no, this is brilliant!"

So then I thought,

'Right, let's do this.'

And it took me about two years to pluck up the courage to actually publish

it online, because I was so worried what everyone obviously would say.

And yeah, that, that's how it started.

That's how I'm here.

Yeah.

Fantastic.

And once you started, you didn't look back.

Exactly.

Yeah.

I often tell people this, that if you do things online, you will be surprised how

quickly people start paying attention.

And you know, I remember the first time I broke the hundred download

barrier and I was over the moon.

I actually just couldn't believe it.

And I remember even looking at the countries and like there

were countries very far away.

And I was just thinking,

'Oh my God, I cannot believe this.'

And then, yeah, once you've got even just a small number like that of people

paying attention, it's surprising how much motivation you can find to keep going.

Yeah.

It's funny, isn't it, how we can be so nervous about

doing something like podcasts.

I mean, it's probably one of the safest forms of putting out

content online because people don't really talk back to you.

You don't see the likes and the dislikes and you don't have the negative comments.

I occasionally get an email through but it's nowhere near the level of interaction

I see on other social platforms, which is a blessing and a curse.

It's a blessing in the sense that I'm a little bit oblivious to what's going on.

I just put out the content and hope for the best, and, you know, it's great

not to have the negativity that can

very quickly change the whole experience

for me, but then it's a curse because you can't interact and know what's working

well and what's not working so well.

It's quite difficult to read the data.

You don't get much data really do you?

Exactly.

But yeah, that's obviously why I chose podcasting because I was, like

scared to put my face out there.

In fact, even on my website, I had like a cartoon picture of me,

which I still use, because I was too scared to show my actual face.

So yeah, it is actually a good place to start if you want to get started in the

online world for those reasons as well.

Yeah.

And so Rock n' Roll English,

can people just find you on any streaming service?

Any of the big podcast apps.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's on all of them.

I'm not sure, but Spotify, Apple Podcast, Podcast Addict.

I don't know.

The list goes on and on.

Yeah.

And I'm sure there'll be more popping up over the coming years as well.

And your podcast is...

well, it's hilarious and it's quite different, I'd say, to some of the

other listening resources that are out there, because you're just kind of

like, anything goes really, aren't you?

It's very relaxed.

It's rock 'n' roll!

Very real, very rock 'n' roll.

Exactly.

Uh, yeah.

And that was another part of the reasoning of just having a chat with some friends.

So the people I generally talk to are really close friends, like some of which,

we've been friends since we were four.

Wow!

We went to school together, so we are really close friends.

They obviously, they know nothing about teaching English.

They've got normal jobs, let's say, and we just have a bit of a chat and then

afterwards, like, analyse what we've spoken about because, yeah, I was and

still am learning Italian, so, and I was listening to Italian podcasts and,

like, you listen to one about, like, Sicilian poetry in the, like, the 15th

century, which, yeah, is interesting, but sometimes you're just like, I

would rather just listen to a couple of people having a chat, so that's kind

of what I thought I actually got as well inspiration from a podcast called

My Dad Wrote a Porno I'm, not sure if you've ever heard of that podcast.

I haven't.

So it's obviously an English podcast for English people,

but anyone can listen to it.

It's hilarious, where this guy's dad wrote a very exotic book and

they just go through the book and just read it and just have a laugh.

And it was brilliant.

I used to love listening to that.

And again, so I just thought I'd like to make something like this of just

entertaining people, just talking about random things and having a bit of a laugh.

So that's what we do.

Okay.

So today, we're going to talk about the high street.

I tend to have a kind of British theme in some of my podcasts, kind

of talking about British culture.

And, you know, I like to also be a little bit nostalgic, and look back at

how things have changed over the years.

Every time I'm driving down the high street these days,

I'm always looking and going,

"Oh my goodness, it's changed so much."

I used to love going to the high street when I was a kid and just hanging

out and spending my pocket money, spending time there with my friends.

And these days it's a very different environment.

All the shops have changed and the variety, what's on offer has changed.

So I was living in Italy until last year.

And so I lived in Italy for like 12 years.

So I noticed this thing a lot, because every time I come back, and I'd be like,

"What, like JJB's closed?!"

Which was a sports shop.

And so yeah, I noticed this change in the local high street.

Yeah.

And even, now when I still go in, I'm still sometimes shocked

when I go into town, as we say.

So yeah, I noticed this change.

You were taken aback by these changes.

Yeah, absolutely.

But first of all, we call it the high street.

Now this only occurred to me a couple of days ago when I knew we

were going to record this podcast.

Like, I'm not sure if it's the same in every country, every, anything you

drive down tends to have its own name.

So we have roads, streets, avenues.

Drives.

Drives.

Yeah.

So you might have Anna Drive.

I don't think you'd have Anna Drive, but whatever it would...

King Drive.

But the high street is not always called 'High Street'.

And I realised, oh, but we refer to every thoroughfare in the kind of

centre of an area, as the high street.

So a thoroughfare being like a route, a path that people go through.

And it's usually they've got a lot of footfall if there's a thoroughfare.

It means there's a lot of people coming through that particular route.

So it's like the main street within a town where there are

shops on either side of the street.

So it's normally around where there'd be a train station or a bus station, you

know, somewhere where lots of people are.

And we refer to that in every single town as a high street, even if it's

not called 'High Street', like, you know, it might be called Charles

Road, but it's the high street.

Of course.

Have you ever thought about that?

Isn't that weird?

Yeah, no, I hadn't actually thought about it at all.

But I would say certainly where I live, it would be...

And when I was a child, it was more common to say, "I'm going into town" than to

say like "I'm going to the high street."

Or if you said, like, for example, I would only really

say high street if someone said,

"Where is that shop?"

And I would say,

"Oh, it's on the high street."

Because in town there is the high street, which is...

The main strip.

Which is the main strip.

Yeah, that's one way of putting it.

But then you've obviously got a few streets going off that

where there are still shops.

The high street where I live is like pedestrianised as well.

So there are no cars.

When I was a child, it wasn't, but now it is.

Yeah.

How did they stop cars going down there?

Have they literally like paved the entire thing?

So there's no road or have they put bollards in?

No, no road.

So I did look up the whole high street naming thing and what I found was the

high street of any British town or city is normally the central retail thoroughfare,

and as we've said, it's not necessarily called the high street, but in many cases

it is called 'High Street' and it says in the English Midlands, high streets

are generally called 'Main Street'.

However, in some towns like Norwich, no street is called 'High Street'.

And whether this thoroughfare is called 'High Street' or not, the

high street is the common term that we use to discuss that main

thoroughfare where all the shops are.

Now you can very quickly tell what an area is like based on the high street.

So I think the high street is a clear reflection of a healthy

town, so an unhealthy high street.

I haven't thought about that either actually, but it is true.

100% true.

Yeah, absolutely.

So if an area is quite deprived, then you're going to have a high street that's

looking, you know, quite unhealthy.

And do you have any, can you kind of explain what an unhealthy

high street would look like?

I would probably have a look at some of the shops on the high street.

Empty units would be a really clear indication of an

unhealthy or deprived area.

We saw that a lot after COVID.

I don't know if you noticed that.

I was just about to say that.

In fact, in my local high street, one of the big, most established shops, probably

the biggest shop on the high street, Debenhams, which any person from the UK

will know, shut, and that is still shut.

Yeah, I think Debenhams, along with many other well-established chains,

have actually decided to cut down the number of stores that they have.

They've brought a lot back because I guess the biggest problem is, well, rising

rents, the cost of everything is going up.

So actually, putting these stores in place is, just too expensive.

And I think online shopping has had a big impact on the high street.

All you do now is just, oh, I need some batteries for my microphone.

Just go onto Amazon.

They'll be brought to my door.

And so going down to the shops, going to the high street just doesn't happen.

Oh, that's exactly what I do.

I'm too lazy to go out and go to the shop and buy some batteries.

So I'll just buy them on Amazon, which I know isn't great, but

obviously, and same as you, children, running a business like...

No time.

No time at all.

So if I can save some time, I will.

Yeah, and I think it's also like, it's many things that you used

to go to the high street for.

So a high street, it used to have a lot of things like a post office,

the high street bank, because banking online wasn't always a thing.

And so you'd have your high street bank, your post office, then you'd

have things like your butcher, your baker, your candlestick maker.

So I lived in Italy for 12 years where both of those things are really common and

so especially a baker like buying fresh bread we literally had one underneath

our apartment in Italy, and you can literally smell the bread in the morning.

It was fantastic.

And there's literally nowhere now, there's no, like, local baker in the whole town.

The closest thing sometimes is somewhere like Greggs, which...

I was gonna say Greggs!

I think Greggs is better known for its, like, pasties, isn't it?

Exactly.

Yeah.

Again, just coming back, like having lived in Italy, I was in Sicily

as well, which is obviously very different from the north of Italy,

where all of these local family-run businesses are still very much a thing.

When I come back and when I did come back permanently, you just notice now

everything is just chain, like a chain, like Greggs and even like restaurants.

There's like Bella Italia and like all of these, you don't get really

local, like family-run restaurants.

I mean, they still do exist, but they're really not very common these days.

Yeah.

And they're certainly not on the high street.

I think, you know, what we mentioned about like rising rents has pushed

out the independents to other areas of town, but then they struggle

because there's not the footfall.

When you mentioned about bakers we, during the pandemic, obviously we had lockdown.

We have an industrial estate close to our house and within that industrial

estate, there's a commercial baker who bakes breads and things for restaurants.

But obviously all the restaurants had closed down.

So they had all these ingredients.

And so they just would open their shutters at certain times every day.

And they'd say, you can queue up outside, obviously socially distanced,

and we'll sell you whatever you need.

We've got all freshly baked bread.

We've got pastries, everything.

And even though we were in a time of socially distancing,

I, that felt really nice.

That kind of sense of...

Yeah, I can imagine.

We were going out in our community to gather bread, we were going somewhere

else to get eggs, and you would see all the people from the local

area buying their daily bread, not daily bread, you don't eat that much

bread in a day, their weekly bread.

To be fair with two young boys, I do eat a lot of bread.

And that was quite nice.

And so after the lockdowns kind of, you know, eased off and everything started to

go back to normal, they actually continued to provide a local community service

because everyone was like, we like this.

Yeah.

That was exactly how it was in Italy, like the local baker.

And yeah, I didn't really think about it, it has that also community feel to

it as well of actually seeing people instead of, like you said, buying

things on Amazon that come to your door and then you don't go outside

so you don't actually see anyone.

I feel like on our high street and the streets coming off the high street

now just seem to be endless numbers of hairdressers and nail salons.

How many hairdressers can survive in one small area?

Really?

Do you go to the hairdressers?

You have lots of lovely locks.

Not as much as I should, which I think you can clearly see, which

again is part of the thing of just not wanting to leave the house.

Well, not that I don't want to, just not having time and just my hair is the least

important thing on my list of priorities, but my six-month visit is coming up soon.

Oh, I see.

So, probably again soon yeah.

I never used to visit the hairdressers half as often as I do now that

I make videos that go online.

For me, it just makes it much easier.

It looks a bit better when I've had it cut and I put a bit of colour in

there to hide the greys, you know.

I've got to the point, I've got past caring now, so I've seen lots

of videos of like me where I look terrible, but I just think phhh.

I think it's an age thing.

I think you just become much more comfortable in your own skin.

I think when you're like at college and uni and surrounded by lots of

other people and you're kind of you know trying to find a mate.

Yeah, yeah.

You know when you're out on the dating scene, you're so concerned with who

you are and how you're coming across to everybody that we just become a little,

we're just so inward looking at ourselves and then after a while you're like,

"Oh, this is who I am.

I'm happy in my life.

I've got my partner now.

I don't have to impress anyone to keep them happy."

Exactly.

Yeah.

So there are a few other things that have that now are on the high

street, almost like a permanent thing.

I don't know if you have these in your area, but they are vape shops.

Yeah.

So obviously I don't smoke or anything, so I don't go into those shops.

I have seen them a lot.

Yeah.

And also like mobile phone shops.

Quite recently I was quite shocked to find a shop on the high street.

The main street where normally you would find the best shops and

there was a shop called iCrack.

So it sounded like it was just selling dodgy iPhones.

And I couldn't believe this shop existed.

I had to go in there because the the screen of my iPhone

was broken and I didn't want...

And is that primarily what they do?

They fix cracked phones?

Yeah, they had some other phone stuff like accessories.

Yeah, exactly.

And they can fix things.

They said to me, whatever they said, I can't remember, it was

about a year ago, but it convinced me it wasn't worth fixing.

So I had to get a new phone.

I think my thing was, do I trust these people with my phone?

Because you have to leave it there and the whole establishment

just didn't feel right.

Like I said, even the name iCrack put me off immediately.

It's funny, isn't it?

They tend to take the tiny units.

So the teeny tiny shops where there's literally just room for a body

and then they're just surrounded, you know, head to toe in like

accessories bulging from the walls.

For those of people listening who've never heard the word vape,

a vape is like a little um...

Electronic cigarette, is that the one?

Yeah it's like an e-cigarette.

I think some of them are reusable, but they also have disposable vapes

now, which have been all over the news recently because they're causing,

they're being just thrown around the streets and causing a problem.

I don't see that vaping has a long future ahead of it.

You know, just like smoking has been falling out of favour.

I don't know.

It's not probably the same in other countries.

But smoking in the UK is definitely becoming less popular.

And drinking as well, drinking is becoming less popular.

I've heard this.

I've heard this.

Some of my friends told me this, but I didn't know.

Over a pint in the...

Yeah, I didn't know if this was true or just the fact that, so we were talking

about the younger generation because unfortunately now we're, you know...

Old.

Getting towards.

Yeah, exactly.

Middle-aged.

Getting very much towards middle age.

So, well, they were talking about the younger generation saying they don't drink

anymore and I was just saying, look, I think you're just talking like old people.

I don't know if that's true because I very rarely go out

these days, so I wouldn't know.

I think it is.

I think as people become more health-conscious, as more information

is made available and there's been, there's more of a push for

people to look after themselves.

And the pub, the good old, you know, British pub, that tradition is...

pubs are struggling.

A lot of pubs have been closing down, and it's certainly not...

Yes, I've noticed that too.

It's like people just don't go and hang out in the pubs

in the way that they used to.

You know, it used to be very much a community thing and

it's not the same anymore.

We have more bars and kind of like bistro pubs where you go and you go more for

the meal or maybe, but just like the kind of average pub where you'd go for

a smoke and a pint, that industry isn't thriving in the way that it used to.

I have to make a confession.

I have actually recently become kind of teetotal with the exception of, like

if it was a wedding or, you know, if it was my surprise birthday party, I'm

turning 50 and you know, they bought me a bottle of bubbly or something like that.

Then I'd be like, of course I'm going to have a drink with you.

But yeah, I just decided that as boring as it might sound, I decided that

after I turned 40, I was just going to really cut everything out and just

try and be as good as I could be...

Yeah that sounds good.

...with what I put in my body.

I actually went out for the first time in a long time, like last

week, the weekend before this one.

And that was the first time in a very long time that I got like properly drunk.

And yeah, we're talking years since the last time that had happened

and the next day I very much was thinking maybe teetotal is a better

idea because it was horrific.

The worst hangover ever.

How long did it take you to feel good again?

Honestly, this is not an exaggeration, I think about a week like before I felt

100% because this was the first time I'd had a proper hangover with the children.

And that also makes it a million times worse because you don't have any time

to just sit around doing nothing, which would be the ideal situation.

What time do your kids wake up in the morning?

About six.

And so luckily it wasn't a late one.

It was more of a daytime thing.

So I was in by like 11, but still, I felt horrific.

Well, this is part of my reasoning is that whenever I've gone out lately and

you know, like I went out on Saturday, I went for a meal with a friend and she

was like, should we do some cocktails?

And you know, ordinarily I would have gone,

"Yeah, sure.

Why not?"

But I'm such a lightweight when it comes to drinking.

I'm trolleyed on just a few drinks.

Trolleyed.

Love that term.

And I feel it.

I really feel it.

And the thought of, you know, having to get up, because my kids

will wake up no later than 6.30 every single day without fail.

And they are very needy children.

They don't just get on with an independent play.

They need me for everything all the time.

And I just couldn't cope.

So I just think, is it really worth that cocktail?

Am I happy just drinking a mocktail?

Or I tend to just drink tonic water on its own.

I'm quite happy with that, so.

My ideal drinking though, now is this happens more when I'm in Italy,

they have this thing aperitivo, like sort of before dinner.

So to have like two beers, maximum three, whilst...

I would be gone.

Three beers!

But I'm talking bottles though.

It's very rare in Italy, you get a nice like pint.

So three bottles of beer with something to munch on whilst I'm eating and then

have dinner and then not drink anymore.

So have dinner and just drink a soft drink.

So then by the time you go to bed, you're actually okay.

And, but you still got that little buzz of like feeling a bit tipsy.

So that's my perfect drinking arrangement these days.

I have to admit, I do miss, red wine was always my thing, you know, I love a

good full-bodied red

wine, especially when you're having like really nice food or

with, I like it with chocolate.

I think I'm a heathen for suggesting red wine with chocolate.

That is a good combination.

Liqueurs as well.

Around Christmas time I am quite partial to a liqueur, but you know, there

are other things I can enjoy instead.

I'm curious, when a man is in a hairdresser's, I mean, obviously we

can't speak for all of our gender, but when I go, because I have the same

hairdresser, and you just talk so much.

Because it's like they're a stranger, but they're not a stranger.

They're not connected to your life.

So you can tell them everything.

And I divulge all of my personal information to this stranger, like every

seven weeks or so when I go and visit.

Is it the same for men?

Or is it like, you know, sit there in silence or what?

What's the deal?

So for me personally, yeah, I do prefer no talking generally,

unless I know the person.

Although saying that, the last time I got my hair cut in the UK, which..

This is a chain, I believe, TONI&GUY.

Yeah.

That's a chain, isn't it?

Big chain.

Big chain.

And they've got their own like products and stuff.

It's

a brand.

Yeah.

So I

thought I'd go there.

I didn't realise how expensive it was, so to get my hair cut at the end.

Well, I went in and asked and they said the cut and dry starts from 40 pounds.

And I thought, 'right, that's okay.

It's still expensive, but okay'.

And I just thought, 'starts from, what does that mean?' And then

when I, at the end, they said,

"It's 69 pounds."

Just to get my hair cut.

Wow!

But there was a woman.

And we really hit it off.

We were chatting away like there was no tomorrow.

It was great.

So I did have a really good chat with her.

But yeah, generally, maybe it's when it's another man.

You just think, I don't know.

You just don't want to talk as much.

But yeah.

I tend to take my laptop in actually these days.

Wow!

If I'm quite busy, so I'll take my laptop and I'll have

to stipulate at the beginning.

She'll be like,

"Oh, Anna, how are you?

How's things?"

I'll say,

"I'm really good.

I do have a lot of work to do today though, so I'm just going

to get on with some work."

And she'll always just check,

"Now that now that your colour's on.

Do you, do you need a magazine?

Or is that a silly question?"

Like, that's a silly question.

I'm doing my work.

I like that.

So that's basically a sign to say, don't talk to me.

I'm working.

Yeah.

That's a good one, yeah.

And the other thing I've noticed that I thought was quite unusual on the

high street lately is that, so all these kind of lovely independent coffee

shops have started to close down.

But in place we've started to get the Starbucks and like the Pret A Mangers.

And which I find unusual because I would expect that in big kind

of city towns, but not in kind of suburban area, like high streets.

And so having these kind of big chain coffee shops and fast food

establishments come in was a bit odd.

Yeah, I agree.

And so again, obviously, it's the same where I live.

And that's like my fear that we're just becoming so Americanised now that kind

of losing our identity a bit and not just us, just globalisation in general.

Even where I lived in Italy, which obviously has got a really strong

kind of like coffee culture.

It wasn't actually Starbucks.

So this was in the south of Italy.

I think there's only one Starbucks in all of Italy or something like that.

I can't remember, but in the south, I think actually they had to close

because they got fined by Starbucks for like copying it was it was basically

Starbucks with a different name and I think they had to close after a few

years because, like, they had copied the brand or something like that.

But the fact these places even exist and there are so many more of these popping

up in Italy, like fast food places which, like, aren't really a thing and like even

like the food culture there obviously is much stronger than it is over here.

So it's just it's a shame to see just globalisation really and everything just

turning into what it's like in America.

Do you have McDonald's?

Of course.

Yeah.

I mean, McDonald's has been there.

Forever.

Forever.

Yeah.

Like with my town, even the same place.

I even used to have McDonald's birthday parties when I was a kid.

Oh, did you?

And so did everyone.

And it was great.

Did Ronald McDonald come to your party?

Yeah.

He was there a few times.

And I've spoken about this a few times on a podcast that like, the treat

was that they would take the birthday boy or the birthday girl plus one

friend to go and look around the back.

So they would take you to see like where the burgers are made, which

when you're like five, it was like,

"Oh my God, this is amazing.

It was so.."

I didn't realise there were probably just some spotty teenagers working

there thinking, 'I can't wait till this is over so I can go home.'

Kids are so easily pleased, aren't they?

Oh yeah.

I'm dreading when they start like going,

"Oh, this is just rubbish."

It was my son's fifth birthday party, well, birthday recently.

And I was really stressed the night before because I hadn't had the time

to decorate or even buy decorations or do any of the things that I

wanted to do to make it special.

So we found some old bunting that I just put up literally one strip of bunting in

the kind of dining area, blew up three balloons that we dug out, and that was it.

And he came down, he was like,

"This is the best birthday ever."

I'm just like,

"Really?

Oh, darling."

Keep your expectations low.

Or keep that bar low.

Let's not go any more than this.

This is easy for now.

So thinking back to when you were a kid, what are the, what the shops, because you

used to have things, all sorts of things, like, you know, there was something called

The Works and Shoe Zone, Poundland, um...

I had a look at your list and when I was reading it, I was thinking,

do these things not exist anymore?

Because I thought...

Not always.

...they still exist.

So, Shoe Zone, Shoe Zone is like a cheap shoe store, isn't it?

It's a chain, but for cheaper shoes.

We don't really, I don't know if it's a southern/northern thing.

I think there are still lots of Shoe Zones up north, but down here I

haven't seen many if any Shoe Zones.

We have Clarks.

Oh, Clarks.

Yeah, number one.

Too expensive to buy shoes there.

Exactly.

50 pounds for a pair of kids pumps.

Exactly.

But yeah, Shoe Zone, I can even picture this in my mind now.

I'm thinking, I'm sure it's still there, but I would have to check because, you

know, in my mind, I've still got the image of what the high street was like, like

25 years ago, in my mind, but in reality, lots of those shops have actually gone.

But Shoe Zone for me was in fact, it wasn't actually on the main high street.

So it was less important, like some of the big ones, which I saw was

on your list as well, like Woolies, Woolworths like that, when that went,

that was like a real blow to everyone.

I still remember hearing that on the news and just being like,

"Oh no."

Yeah.

So Woolworths, for those listening, how would you describe Woolworths?

It had a mix of everything.

Yeah, there was lots of things in there, really, weren't there?

Like you could buy sweets in there, which I'm sure you could.

I'm surprised that the first thing you say is sweets.

They had the big pick and mix selection, didn't they?

Yeah.

I'm sure you could get like DVDs, well, before, videos and things.

I can't really think what else was in there except sweets.

Stationery?

Stationery?

Stationery.

I was thinking that as well, yeah.

I think it was just like a general like home and living type of, you know,

come in and buy all sorts of stuff.

But I miss Woolworths a lot.

But the thing I remember that sticks out in my mind when I think

of Woolworths is it's the only time I've ever broken the law.

Because I'm very, I think I'm quite a conscientious person.

I certainly know right from wrong.

And I would never steal anything like off the shelves.

But I would notice walking around because I had a terrible sweet tooth, and I would

notice that some of the sweets had fallen onto the floor and I would see that the

people in the shop would sweep these sweets up and throw them in the bin.

Now, some of the sweets had wrappers on, so I was like,

Right, okay.

'They're not dirty and they're just gonna go in the bin.

So, I'm not doing anything wrong by just picking those up,

sticking them in my pocket.'

It's a bit gross.

You're just, you're doing them a favour, really.

I was helping them to clean up.

Exactly.

I was just helping them to clean up.

Oh right, that's not bad.

Yeah, because yeah, I can't remember if it was there or also in Wilko's, they

used to do it at Wilkinson's, which is also closing down, I recently heard.

Yeah, I think they went into administration just this year.

And what you used to do is you used to like weigh the pick and mix and then you'd

get like a sticker which you would put on the bag and then you could put some more

and you could put a few more in yeah.

Never even thought of that.

See, you're a clever criminal.

I'm a conscientious criminal.

A true criminal.

Yeah.

I think the one shop I miss the most was, is HMV.

Now that definitely is still, not on the high street, but just

off the high street where I live.

Really?

Okay.

So that hasn't changed luckily for me because yeah, even now.

So just the other day I was with my wife and children and my wife

was in one shop and I just went in there just to walk around.

So what do they sell there now?

Cause HMV for those listening is all about like, it's music and it's entertainment,

so it's music and films and games.

And so you go in there mostly to buy like DVDs, CDs and game consoles and games.

So I guess there's the big gaming section.

But what do they do other than that?

How do they...?

So they sell like electronic stuff as well.

So like, what are they called?

Like when you like, this is even sounds old with this, but where you

plug your iPod into it, if you don't do that now, but like something to

play music with stereo kind of thing.

I'm not sure of the new name.

So, like speakers and things like that.

Speakers and like headphones.

And maybe they do the retro, like vinyl.

Because there's a big vinyl market, isn't there?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And like T-shirts, posters.

In fact, even now, you know, like the old posters you could flick through.

Yeah, yeah.

I still like just flicking through the posters.

I don't know.

I don't even know what most of them are these days, but when...

I couldn't tell you anyone that's in the charts right now.

Oh, God no.

Do they...?

I didn't know the charts even still existed.

Yeah, yeah.

I sometimes I'm in the car and it goes,

"The charts!"

And I'm like, "Oh, ok!"

Yeah.

I don't know any of this music.

That's a shame, isn't it, getting old?

It is.

Because obviously since like Top of the Pops and things

where it was like a big thing.

And I was talking to friends about this the other day.

Like when there was a song you liked, it was so difficult to actually...

unless you actually went to the shop and bought the single, there

was no way of actually listening to it unless it came on the radio.

So..

Yeah, and you then would record it off the radio.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

I used to love that.

Onto your tape.

Yeah.

But, and so we were talking about it as well, that's what made it

so special of like, the song comes on the radio and it was like,

'Oh, yes, brilliant!'

And these days with everything being digital, I know it's like much easier

to get a hold of almost everything, but actually like I wanted to play ET for

my family because we have movie night every couple of weeks, I was like,

"I think my boys would love ET."

And I couldn't find it.

And we have a lot of subscriptions and we couldn't find it anywhere.

I did actually find it just yesterday.

It's actually on NOW TV, which is like the Sky product, but we

don't have that subscription.

And, or, yeah, we don't have that one.

So I was like, well, I'm going to have to now pay for a subscription that I

don't want just to get this one film.

Whereas in the past you would just go and buy the video, the VHS or the DVD,

and then you just had it in your cupboard and you could pull it out any point.

Or go to another high street classic, Blockbusters.

Blockbusters.

Yeah, the video rental shop.

Exactly.

Go down there, hire it.

Yeah.

Go and watch it and then take it back.

Oh, oh, I'm feeling so nostalgic now.

I don't know when that closed.

I mean, that's been closed for years, obviously, now, but these things

just kind of disappear, don't they?

Yeah.

You just..

Yeah, we've lived through such a transformative era.

Yeah, definitely.

'Cause I still remember no mobile phones, no computers.

Of course, yeah.

No internet.

Yeah, same.

And you know, life was so much simpler.

Oh, 100%.

I mean, there's so many opportunities now for English learners.

I think, you know, life now is, any language learner, is much easier, but

yeah, I do miss those simple days when you weren't bombarded with messages

left, right and centre and everything keeping you overstimulated all the time.

Absolutely.

Right, I always think of how these days, you're just never really bored

in the sense that you don't have to just like sit around and think

because you just get your phone out.

So if I'm ever watching TV, which is very rare these days, like normal

TV, and there's an advert break, the first thing I'll do is take my phone.

And then I'll watch some stupid videos until whatever I'm watching comes back on.

Whilst before you had to watch the adverts and...

Or talk to your family.

Yeah, exactly.

Or even if you're just waiting like at the post office or something like

that, just the first thing you do is just take your phone out, and, like,

pretend you're busy kind of thing.

I find it overwhelming at times that I, as a content creator, I don't know if

you feel the same, but I go through waves of feeling like really motivated and

inspired and I've got loads of energy.

And then I peak where I feel overwhelmed and then I'd go down.

And then I hit this kind of rut where I just can't bear, I have to leave my

phone in another room for hours because I just can't bear the stimulation.

It's just too much.

It's actually nice to hear someone else say that because

that's exactly how I feel.

Like, when you get to that low and you just, I can't face...

and because obviously as content creators, you kind of know what's happening.

So when someone's like, you're flicking through Instagram, with

the hook to try and get your attention and you're just like,

"Oh, I can't be bothered with this."

So yeah, the phone in the other room is something I'm doing a lot at the moment.

And what I even notice if I'm uploading a video, for example, and it just takes

a few seconds, normally I'll just reach for my phone and I even still do that,

like my hand will go to get my phone, even though it's actually not there.

It's just a reflex now, which is terrible.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We need to try and find a healthy balance.

One of the mums said to me just the other day, she said,

"I left my phone in the other room and my child, my four-year-old panicked

and grabbed my phone and ran with my phone like I would die without it going

'mummy, mummy, you forgot your phone.

Are you okay?'"

Because she'd never seen her without her phone.

And I think, you know, we're teaching our kids some really vital lessons now.

We have to think what those lessons are and if that's what we want to teach them.

So as my kids get older, you know, my partner and I are always like, we

don't have the phones at the table.

We always eat meals at the table together.

Yeah, same.

We don't have our phones.

And I think as my kids get phones, when they're teenagers,

we'll have a box or something.

They will have to put their phone away at certain times so they can learn how

to interact properly with their families.

It's scary thinking of kids with phones.

Because it was like you said, we didn't have that.

I remember no phones and, so yeah, it's quite scary thinking like

the whole social media and things.

Yeah, they've got that because we didn't have that.

Yeah.

Well, we've gone all around the houses, haven't we?

Indeed.

All around the houses, but hopefully, you know, the high street will survive.

Currently we have a lot of empty shops and there's more and more going every

day and more different things popping up.

Poundland still survives.

Poundland, the shop where everything is a pound, although not always.

It's not.

It's just to get you in, yeah.

Yeah.

Times change, but I think some of these things will just continue to survive.

The one thing I did want to wrap up on was the cost of a stamp.

I'm outraged.

Outraged!

I haven't actually bought a stamp in such...

I had to apply for a passport for my daughter the other day because she

didn't actually have a British one.

She only had an Italian one.

But I got some kind of like recorded delivery thing.

I didn't actually buy a stamp.

So I actually don't know how much a stamp is.

So you can tell me.

It's £1.25 for a first-class stamp.

When I was born, back in 1981 it was 14 pence.

Isn't that insane, £1.25?

So talk about price inflation, so do you remember Space Raiders, the crisps?

I can't remember someone told me recently.

They're like 60p now or something like that.

Oh my goodness!

They were like 10p.

Yeah!

So yeah, cost of living, but, on the high street thing, I was

happy to hear the other day.

I was talking to my niece who is 11 and I said, I think we were on a Sunday.

I said,

"What did you do yesterday?"

And she said,

"I went into town with my friend."

And I was quite pleased that that's still a thing because I remember when I

was 11 and going into town on your own without parents and just walking around

having a look in the shops was an event.

So I'm happy to hear that that's still going.

Yeah, it's I think the one thing when we're talking about towns in general, one

thing that I'm really frustrated with, and I hope does change soon, because

of all the cuts, the budget cuts, the councils have no money, a lot of the

public swimming pools are being shut down because they cost too much to run.

And so people are really struggling to have, you know, get to a local

pool and do some swimming and when I was a kid, like that was the thing.

You took your pocket money after doing your chores, you got your pocket money.

You went to town, you went swimming and you, I would always have one of those

awful machine soups where you put your money in and it gives you a chicken soup

from powder, you know, drink that with dunk your KitKat in it, oh disgusting!

And then I'd go into the town and walk around the shops.

I'd go to the joke shop, always buy something disgusting from the joke shop

to play pranks on my family and friends.

Or something to dress up in.

And I used to make videos even when I was a kid, so buy some

witchy things or something.

And yeah, just hang out, steal sweets from Woolworths, go and listen to music in HMV.

So I hope that, I hope the kids of today can still enjoy kind of some level of

what we enjoyed when we were younger.

Exactly.

Not just be obsessed with their phones.

Just one last story about going into town.

I think one of the first times I did was when I bought my

first album with my money.

And I remember, again, talking about phones, because I was spending

£10, it felt like such a big thing.

And I actually went to a payphone, put in 10p to call my mum at home and say,

"Is it okay if I spend my money on this album?"

And she said yeah, and then I went into the shop and spent £10 and I was like,

"Oh my God."

What was it?

I'm actually quite pleased and quite proud of it because it is still an album

I like which was The Fugees - The Score.

Nice.

Which was an album I still actually like a lot, but yeah that was, I

still remember that day so well.

It was a great day.

I don't remember my first album but I remember my first single.

Not as cool.

I do still enjoy the song, but it was Hanson - MMMBop.

Oh, right.

Wow.

Yeah.

Everyone thought they were girls, didn't they?

When they saw the video.

Yeah.

Yeah.

'Cause they had like long blonde hair.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, they're pretty cool even now.

Like, you know, they're still busting a groove.

Really?

Yeah.

Yeah.

They're still like working musicians.

Okay.

I didn't, did not know that.

Yeah.

Every day is a school day.

Yeah, I'm trying to get my kids into all the music that I've,

you know, loved over the years.

Right.

And it takes them a little while, but then they obsess over one song.

And like the recent song was, I Believe In A Thing Called Love.

Right.

Ok.

Because we do like that kind of like rock stuff.

So, I put that on a couple of times and my sons were playing in the other room,

just like obsessed with Magna-Tiles or something really into their task.

And then out of nowhere, my son just comes running in and like

does a knee slide across the floor.

Carpet burn.

Jumps up on the couch and starts like doing air guitar, like, yes, I've got you.

I've got you.

Here's another one.

And now it's like nonstop.

I'm going to get sick of it.

Fantastic.

But thank you.

We have, we have been here for nearly an hour, but thank you so

much for covering all that ground.

I'm sure the listeners would have got something very useful from

that, loads of lovely vocabulary.

So thank you.

It's been a pleasure taking a trip down memory lane.

Absolutely.

A really nostalgic podcast.

Fantastic.

Thanks for having me.

And I'm going to come over and do something on your podcast.

So, all of my listeners should definitely come over to you

and have a listen to that.

I'll put links in the show notes.

Do you have a website where we can find all your links?

I do.

So it's rocknrollenglish.com, but notice it's Rock 'N' spelt 'N', Rock n' Roll.

Actually, if you can see there, this is the flag, Rock n' Roll English.

It's actually got a grammatical mistake because there should

be another apostrophe there.

And the same as you, I kind of put this out and someone once sent me

a really aggressive message saying,

"There should be another apostrophe there."

I was like,

"Ahh, yeah!"

I could change it, but I'm quite proud of the fact that there's a mistake in

like my brand, like, logo and everything because it, like you mentioned about

you make mistakes, we make mistakes.

So I'm quite proud of it now.

Yeah, just stand by it.

It's reflective of your teaching, nice and relaxed and owning your mistakes.

Exactly.

So yeah, rocknrollenglish.com

Fantastic.

Well, thank you.

You take care.

Yep, you too.

Thanks a lot, Anna.

See you soon.