📚 English Reading Practice - British English Podcast

Hello everyone and welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast.

My name is Anna and today I've got a beef.

I've got a beef with the theme parks.

Now if you're watching me on YouTube, you will notice that I'm wearing my gym kit.

So I've been at the gym this morning, and I was thinking a lot

about theme parks and about the beef that I have with these theme parks.

So this is going to be a bit of a rant, I'm afraid.

And I hope that you are on board with some of the things that I

have to say about theme parks.

I hope that you agree with me, and that I'm not just ranting

like some mad woman, with you shaking your head and disagreeing.

I hope we're on the same page.

So what is a beef?

Well, beef as we know it is a red meat that comes from the cow.

In French beef is uh...

is it ‘le boeuf’ or ‘la boeuf’?

Le boeuf!

I think it's ‘le’.

But I might be thinking about that actor Shia LaBeouf.

Does that mean that he's called like “Shea Beef” or something like that?

Anyway, beef is meat.

Now, if you say I've got a beef with someone, then this is an

idiomatic phrase, that actually means you have a problem with someone,

you have an issue with them.

And this is more like a complaint.

You're annoyed with them because they've done something or said something.

Or maybe they haven't done something you expected them to do.

So you've got a beef with them.

I always think about changing beef for problem.

And if you do that, then that's how you use this particular word.

I've got a beef with you.

I've got a problem with you.

Hey, what's his beef?

Hey, what's his problem?

Okay, so this...

I thought this was a new phrase, I thought this was something

from the last couple of decades.

But when I looked into this particular phrase, to have a beef with someone, it's

actually been around for over 100 years.

But the origin is unknown now some suggest it might be to do with being

beefy, muscular.

And this got me thinking about the word beef,

and how it comes from where it's very similar to the French word ‘boeuf’’.

And how actually we have a word which is B-U-F-F, buff, buff.

And this is a way of describing someone who's attractive and muscular.

So if someone is, you know, going to the gym a lot, they've got good

tone, quite a lot of muscle, then you say oh, they're quite buff.

So it's a positive descriptive word, or you're quite buff.

Okay, so maybe to have a beef with someone is to feel muscularly

aggressively annoyed with someone.

So if two people have beef with one another, then perhaps the origin,

is this idea of two muscular people coming together and having

a fight, having a conflict.

But you must understand that I am simply speculating.

I don't know this is just something that's come to my mind how these

words are very similar, and how they could potentially be related.

So I have a beef with the theme parks.

And before I go into my particular beef with these theme parks, I'm going

to just reel off to reel off is to quickly impart lots of information.

So I'm going to reel off a list.

So I'm very quickly going to tell you a list of some of the theme

parks you'll find in the UK.

Now the one that springs to mind to spring to mind is to come to my mind quickly.

The one that springs to mind every time is Alton Towers, Alton Towers.

Alton Towers is kind of in the northwest of England.

Some other ones are are Thorpe Park, Blackpool Pleasure Beach, Chessington

World of Adventures, Drayton Manor, Lego Land, Fantasy Island, Paultons Park

which is also home to Peppa Pig World.

If you know who Peppa Pig is.

Oakwood Theme Park, Lightwater Valley, and Flamingo Land Resort.

I'm gonna stop there, I mean, Flamingo Land, there's a theme

park called Flamingo Land.

That's just, that's crazy.

I would imagine somewhere that's got the name, Flamingo Land would be like

a bird sanctuary, kind of like a zoo that has a heavy leaning towards birds.

In fact, we have a place not far from me called Bird World, which is, you

know, a place that houses lots of birds.

And there are other things you can do there too.

But the main reason for being there is to see the birds.

So if you say, "Hey, Anna, do you want to go to Flamingo Land?"

I'm gonna be expecting just lots of pink one-legged birds.

Not that the Flamingo is one-legged, of course.

The Flamingo has two very long legs, and it often just stands on one leg.

Do you know they sleep standing up?

I hope I've remember that correctly.

They, they stand on one leg to rest the other leg.

And I believe that they sleep like that.

Maybe I'm making this up.

Someone's gonna have to Google this and tell me.

Fact check me.

Fact check me.

It sounds like you're saying fat check.

Fat check.

Fact, fact check me please.

Do flamingos sleep standing up?

Just going to take a little sip of water.

Listen to this.

Absolutely silent apart from the gulp.

I did try my best.

Okay, so those are some of the theme parks you'll find in the UK.

I just reeled that list off for you.

Now, as a child, I was a frequent visitor to a theme park that no

longer exists, sadly, called Camelot.

And it was based around the legend of King Arthur and the Knights.

And it was this huge kind of Castle.

I think it was actually located around an old ruins of a castle.

And everything was in this theme of medieval England.

And they actually had shows every day.

A couple of shows where they do some jousting.

Jousting is when you have the men dressed up as knights on the

horses, so they're on horseback.

So the men are on horseback.

And it could be ladies too.

I'm not saying it's just men, but the riders are on horseback and they have this

huge javelin, joust, joust, or javelin.

Oh, I really should have done my research before recording this podcast.

They have a huge stick, it's a very long stick.

And it's usually blunt at the end for the shows particularly.

And then they have a shield, which is often just a big round, circular shield.

And they run at each other.

And the idea is to try to either...

Well, I think it's just to knock the other person off their horse.

I think that's the idea or to hit the person...

against the shield.

And I mean, it's always so dramatic.

And at some point, one of the men would be knocked off their horse,

and then it would go to fisticuffs.

Fisticuffs is a nice slang phrase.

I say it's a nice slang phrase.

It sounds fun, but it's a very violent and terrible, terrible thing to fight someone.

Fisticuffs means when you literally fight with your fists.

So they had some fisticuffs or they would get their sword out, or they might

have like a big spiky ball on a chain.

I'm sure these things have actual words to represent them.

But I'm not that familiar with these fighting terms.

So something you guys can look up for homework.

So yeah, we'd have these really dramatic shows.

And you would get behind one of the riders.

So one of the knights, you would be deciding who you're going to support, and

you'd cheer for them throughout the joust.

And it was very dramatic, it was wonderful.

So those are my, like, childhood memories of theme parks.

Going to a theme park that sure it had rides, as theme parks would do, but it

also had these big shows, these dramas, that you could really get involved with.

And we'd always take a picnic, because that was the way to save a bit of money.

I'll come to the cost of theme parks later when I go into my beef.

Now, these are very fond memories, to be fond of something means to have a love

or a liking for someone or something.

So you could say, I'm very fond of this person.

And it doesn't mean you're in love with them.

Although it could suggest that you might love them.

But it doesn't always mean that.

You could be fond of someone you work with, it doesn't mean that you

fancy them, that you want to marry them and have children with them.

It might just be that you like them very much.

There're a number of people I play squash with, all different ages.

And there's one chap in particular who I'm very fond of.

He's 81 years old.

And I would love him to be my granddad.

He is the most wonderful, warm hearted, happy person.

And I often go to squash, even if I'm not really feeling up to it, I don't feel

energised, or maybe I have an injury.

But I often still go to my social squash session, just to see this

person who I'm very fond of.

Because he's lovely.

So you can be fond of a person, or you can be fond of doing something,

or you can be fond of a thing.

I'm fond of a bit of chocolate with my coffee.

It's just something you really like, but fond, often links to happy memories.

So fond memories, I have fond memories of visiting Camelot theme park as a child.

There was a long period in my adult life where I didn't go to theme parks because

I was busy exploring the world and, you know, working and things like that.

But as a mum, theme parks are now back on the table.

If something is back on the table, it means it's now something to be considered.

It's an option or something to be discussed.

It's on the table.

So theme parks came back on the table once I became a mum because previously

my adventures were quite dangerous, should we say, they were very active.

It was mountain climbing, hiking, rock climbing, long cycles, things like that.

So it's not something I can now do having young children so I have to think

of other options and theme parks are a good option for when you have children.

But here is my beef with theme parks.

I actually have two beefs.

I hope you don't mind.

I'm going to rant twice.

My first beef with theme parks is, and this actually comes down specifically

to one of the worst days I had a theme park which was my birthday.

When I turned 41.

I'd forgotten all about planning something for my birthday because I was so busy

organising other people's birthdays.

Because I'm a September baby, which means loads of other people in my friend and

family circle are also September babies.

Lots of people are born in September.

Hmm, I wonder why.

Well, it is the ninth month of the year.

What happens nine months previous to that?

Oh, yes.

Christmas and New Year celebrations.

Lots of parties.

Lots of getting a bit wild a bit crazy.

Boom.

Oh, we're having a baby.

There we go.

So I'm one of those babies And there's lots of other people in my

family, my son is a September baby.

My mum is a September baby.

My mother-in-law's a September baby.

My brother-in-law's a September baby.

My best friend's a September baby, so many.

So I was busy planning.

Everyone else is happy birthdays.

And I forgot about my own.

I didn't plan anything.

And so as a last resort, like, Okay, we're going to go to Thorpe Park.

So we took a day off work.

And Thorpe Park is a theme park that's aimed really at the adults.

It's got mostly big scary rides for adults, not for children.

And so we thought we're gonna do this.

And we headed out it's a long way from here, but we headed out early.

And we got there.

And as soon as we arrived at "uh-oh", we saw it:

huge queues just to get into the theme park.

"What have we done?

We've done this all wrong.

We've got it all wrong."

We'd chosen a day during the week thinking it would be quiet.

But no, there was obviously loads of school trips or college

trips or something going on, that meant there were loads of people.

And to cut a long story short, that's a phrase that's used often when someone

doesn't want to go into too much detail.

To cut a long story short, you can even shorten this phrase, long story short.

Long story short, we spent the entire day, the entire day,

maybe six hours at Thorpe Park.

And guess how many rides we managed to ride in that six-hour window.

Three, three rides.

And that's not even the worst of it.

The worst of it is, those combined rides the time it took us to ,ride

those rides from getting on it setting off and us getting off again, the

combined riding time was three minutes.

Three minutes in six hours.

Three minutes of fun in a six-hour day.

Ah, it was just...

it was just so frustrating.

Frustrating isn't even the right word, infuriating.

It was infuriating.

Some of you may know that I'm a bit of a workaholic.

A workaholic is someone addicted to work.

And if I'm not working, I like to be doing one of two things, either

spending quality time with my children, or exercising, doing something

active, that's going to progress, my body, my fitness my skill level.

Outside of that, if I'm doing anything else, then I like to be doing something

that progresses my life, that makes my life easier, that makes my life nicer.

Whether it's decorating a room in my house,

or like printing off pictures of my children and making a nice collage

of photographs to put on the wall.

Those kinds of things I like doing I like to feel at the end of the

day, like I've achieved something.

So paying for someone else to spend fun time with my children while I

take time away from work to go and stand in Thorpe Park for five hours

and 57 minutes, just doing nothing.

That that just drove me, drove me crazy.

And I said "that's it, that's it.

We're never going to a theme park again, that's such a waste of time."

Now the biggest problem that I can see with the theme parks is that

they let more and more people in.

Obviously they're paying a lot for advertising and they're trying to get

more and more people in through the door selling these like annual tickets as well.

So more people can come in more often to make more money.

And yet they don't have the capacity to be able to service all these

people with a decent day out.

I don't think there was one ride at Thorpe Park that day that had

a queue smaller than 45 minutes.

Can you Imagine you've come to a theme park to go on lots of rides and have fun.

And yet any single ride that you want to go on, you have to wait for 45 minutes.

And it's 45 minutes standing up in close proximity to lots of other people.

Now, we obviously have been through a pandemic.

And I don't know about you, but I have started to feel a little bit more aware

of being in other people's breathing space since the pandemic, so I don't really like

to be in very close proximity to hundreds of people for a long period of time.

So that makes me a little uncomfortable to be in close proximity.

Close proximity just means that you are physically distance

wise, very close to one another.

So I don't like to be in close proximity to other people.

But I'm also quite claustrophobic.

And this is an anxiety that has certainly increased for me, as I've aged.

And that's silly, because I think you should become a little less concerned

about things as you get older, you become more wise and more relaxed, but

for some reason, I just get terribly anxious when I'm in an enclosed space.

It's particularly bad with things like lifts, which is the

British term for an elevator.

Or if I'm on the tube, and the tube is the underground train.

Yeah, I just don't like it when the doors closed, and then I'm

in a tunnel, and the tube stops.

And I can't access the driver to say "What's happening?

When can I get off.

Or if I feel unwell, "could you please open the doors?"

It probably stems from, to stem from something means where it comes from.

It probably stems from a few bad experiences that I've had in the

past while being on a packed tube.

And I've had a couple of experiences also on a train when I was unable to

open the doors and access some fresh air.

So this makes me terribly uncomfortable in a queue with lots and lots of

people, especially once you get into the middle of the queue or if it's

inside, and you're in a dark space or on a staircase and there's just loads of

people and you kind of can't move about.

Makes me uncomfortable.

Having said that, my claustrophobia has actually proven to be quite

prominent, actually on the rides.

So one of the rides we managed to get on in Thorpe Park was a roller coaster

that you kind of sit underneath so the track of the roller coaster is above you.

And the the seats are hanging from the tracks.

So you go and sit into a seat and your legs are just dangling.

To dangle is to kind of like to hang and flap about.

Your legs are dangling off the ride.

And then you get flung around.

To fling is a kind of to throw.

So you're being flung about all over the place.

Now this ride was quite fast, you've got quite a G-force

going around some of the bends.

And the, the what do you call it, it's not a belt, but the, the bars,

the protective bars that hold you in.

Obviously, they're automated, they come down and they're they're

locked into place until they're released at the end of the ride.

But as we were going around the ride, they got tighter and tighter and

tighter as we hit the higher G-force.

So by the end of it, this protective bar, this barrier was pressing

down really hard on my chest.

And it was an I could just breathe, I could breathe.

That's, that's what people are supposed to do.

So I was allowed to breathe, but I couldn't breathe very deeply.

And we were being held before we were allowed to be released.

We were being held while the people in front of us we're getting on to the, the

other set of seats that were going around.

And I just wanted to get off.

My partner had to keep me calm, like take my hand and tell me

to breathe and not to panic.

And it was fine.

I was okay.

But in that moment I definitely had to have a quiet word with myself an

internal word to stop myself going into like panic mode, because it's

just thing of not having control.

And if I want to be able to breathe, and I can't access the freedom or the air

that I need, then that makes me panic.

The other rides were amazing.

And actually going round the roller coaster.

Amazing, it was three minutes of pure joy.

But the other five hours and 57 minutes, were not so fun.

Now, these theme parks do give you an option, you can buy

special Fast Track tickets.

But I've already paid over 30 pounds for my single ticket.

So between my partner and I, we've paid over 60 pounds.

And we've paid for parking, and we paid to drive all this way.

So then, if I want more than three minutes of excitement for that 60

odd pounds that we've paid, then I have to pay an extra 15 pounds is

the minimum for a fast track ticket.

And then that allows you to fast track, maybe three or four rides.

And then if you want more fast track options, then you pay more and you can end

up paying double the price of your ticket.

And I, I just, I just have a problem with that.

If the park isn't big enough to give everyone a good day, then you're

kind of forcing people to spend more money in order just to have what

should be your normal allocation of rides, it just doesn't seem fair.

Now add into that an average family of two children, two adults, so a family of four.

It costs a fortune.

It costs an absolute fortune.

Now I think some of the places now have replaced the fast-track

name for that ticket system with a reserve and ride queuing system.

So you can download the app and you can pay extra to reserve

your place in the queue while you go off and do other things.

So you can say at three o'clock I want to ride this ride.

I mean, I'm not certain exactly how it works.

But you say at this time I want to ride or I want to queue now.

And the queues 20 minutes.

So while my app is queuing for me, I'll go and get a drink.

And that seems like a slightly better system.

But still you're cutting the queue, you're you're cutting in front of other people.

So to cut the queue is to move ahead of others who have been waiting.

And queue is a funny word, isn't it?

Queue has a very odd spelling, I always doubt when I write the word

queue I have a moment of hesitation, I get the first three letters, right.

And then I'm like, “Oh, what, what's the other combination?” So it's Q-U-E-U-E.

But really, it just needs to be q u e ‘que’ , I mean.

It could just be the letter ‘Q’, couldn't it?

But there's English spelling for you.

Not an easy language.

Now the other money making of what's the word money making scheme that

bothers me a little bit is the price of food, which is always high in these

places, the price of photographs.

So they take these photos of you as you're going through these

rides, you know, pulling all these distorted faces, faces of terror,

faces of exhilaration, faces of fear.

And they take a picture of you.

And then you go and have a look at the photo being displayed to the

world as you come off the ride.

And you can decide I'd like to take that home.

I'd like to share that with my, my friends and family.

But then they say the price of this photograph which is

slightly blurry, not very good.

The price of this photograph is 12 pounds.

But if you want to have four photographs, you could pay 40 pounds.

It's just...

it's just extortion.

It's an extortionate amount to charge for a photo.

That's not great.

And I always think if they charged a more reasonable price,

they would sell so many more.

Can you hear those birds in the background?

Those are the non-native parrots.

We have a parrot population in London, which is always quite fascinating.

And they like to come and sit in my garden and screech a lot when I'm recording.

So hello, hello Mr.

Parrot.

I and also see a magpie from where I'm sitting as well.

Looking for treasure on my roof, he won't find much.

Just some leaves in the gutter probably.

Anyway, back to what was I talking about, queues, cutting

queues and oh, oh photographs.

Photographs being ridiculously priced.

So yeah, they would make more money if they just made things reasonable.

They also offer I've never done this, but they also offer unlimited drinks.

This is soft drinks, not kind of get tipsy, have a good time

kind of drinks, soft drinks.

So high sugar, soda, like Coca Cola, Sprite, whatever is on offer.

I don't drink soft drinks, really.

So I'm not familiar with what's popular these days.

But you can buy a huge plastic, what they call a vessel.

But to you and me it's a cup, or a beaker.

It's a huge cup, and it is large, for 12 pounds.

And with this vessel, they call it a vessel.

A vessel is just anything that carries something but a vessel is normally

used to describe some sort of boat.

But a vessel can be used to describe something that carries something else.

So this vessel as they call it, it's large, and you can pay 12 pounds.

And then at any point around the park, they'll have these are different

points, sorry, around the park.

They have these refill stations, so you can refill your vessel.

You refill your vessel with pop, with soda, with fizzy drink.

But what gets me is, I struggle on the rare occasions that I buy a

can of Coke Cola, which I sometimes do occasionally, if I'm feeling

dehydrated, on a very hot summer's day, a nice kind of coke is lovely...

I struggled to drink a can, which is probably you know the size of

these vessels that they sell, you could only probably get two cans...

well, you could probably get two or three cans of Coke in this one huge vessel.

So I struggled to drink one in an entire day.

So when you're going round rides that make you feel sick.

And in a place that's so busy, you have to queue for every toilet.

How on earth are you going to drink 12 pounds worth of

fizzy drink in this huge cup?

And then you've also got to carry it around all day?

Who's going to hold it when you go on rides?

Like you know it just it just seems like a silly thing.

Are you the kind of person who buys these things?

I'd love to know your reasoning.

And if you find it frustrating or if you actually enjoy the experience of

having gallons and gallons of soda as you walk around the theme park.

Anyway, that's my beef.

Number one is high prices for very little return.

There's very little return on my investment when I buy a theme park ticket.

Now, beef number two, theme parks aimed at younger families should

make queueing more interesting.

So let's take Peppa Pig World for example.

Peppa Pig world is wonderful.

It's all around the theme of Peppa Pig, which is a popular children's

cartoon, an animated series.

And there are so many episodes.

And it's very educational.

And it's you know, pepper is this young child pig and she's got a

little brother George, and a mummy and daddy and grandpa and grandma.

And there's all these other characters.

So very relatable for young children.

And there's this theme park called Peppa Pig World that lives within another

bigger theme park called Paulton’s Park.

And when you go in the height of summer, or during peak times.

There's a lot of people there with lots of young children from like tiny

babies up to, I don't know, maybe six or seven years old, maybe a little older.

But that's the age range, I'd say, the younger kind of

toddlers into young children.

But half these rides when you're there at peak times are 20-30-40 minute

queues and these rides are tame.

So to be tame is to be not scary.

Or, if you're a tame personality, then you could be quite shy.

You don't speak out very often you don't like conflict, you're quite tame, timid.

A ride that's described as tame is a non-scary ride.

So, these rides are designed for toddlers for young children.

So it might just be a boat floating around a lazy river, or a roller

coaster ride that slows down even as it's coming down, but then just

releases a little bit to give you a little woosh feeling, but not too much.

Or quite popular are these like, hot air balloon rides, where you sit in this

huge, let's call it a cup, or a basket.

And then it just lifts you up and moves you around.

It's almost like a what do you call it?

Like a carousel, carousel like the London Eye is a huge one.

And you just get to see the sights and feel like you're moving up and down.

So they're very tame, rides.

So when you're waiting for 25 minutes, for a small, very tame ride, it's dull

for most people, but for a toddler, who has to stand there and watch the one

thing that they want to do more than anything in the world, at that point.

They have to watch it again and again and again.

But they're not allowed to be involved.

Until it's their turn.

They don't get it.

They don't understand that they have to wait and 25 minutes for

a child that age is torture.

I know because I've been there.

I had so many meltdowns.

Or rather, Jacob had so many meltdowns when he was two years old,

at Peppa Pig world, queueing for 20 minutes at a time, for these rides.

And it was torture for him.

And he made it torture for everybody else.

So I always think that if the people planning these Theme Parks had even the

slightest realisation of how difficult it is to keep a young child waiting in a long

queue, then what they do is make sure the queues are entertaining in themselves.

So that means having things like games that they could get involved with,

little activities that they can do.

And there are some in some queues in some theme parks.

Like I've seen these ones that are like big disks, and inside, there's

like balls, little balls, and like in a maze, perhaps and you turn the disks,

and you have to get the ball to go where you want it to go in the maze.

Or that you might have spinning discs with different pieces of plastic perspex,

all different colours, and as you spin it, you get to see the different colours.

And you know, just something that's got some level of

stimulation would work, anything.

Some places might have, like, a little xylophone type instrument against

the wall, these metal strips with a beater and you beat them to make some

noise that keeps the kids entertained.

Simply a steering wheel attached to the wall that kids can just spin around.

They love that for a few minutes.

The other option, of course, is to simply put pictures on the walls so people can

look at the pictures and parents can, you know, try and distract the children

by getting them to name things in the picture, find things in the picture.

Another option is, and I think this would be one of the best options, is

to have screens on the walls, or at least speakers playing a story for the

children or some popular children's music like “Baby Shark” perhaps.

But screens playing something that the children can get involved in

or it would just make life so much easier rather than just standing

looking at the one thing they want to do that they can't do, the ride.

The other thing I would ask planners of theme parks to do is to consider

putting seats in the queuing area.

They don't have to be all the way maybe just some pull down seats that

flap back up when you're bottom leaves them, just so that those of us who

have to carry our children, pick our children up and console them for long

periods of time, can sit down and rest our bones because it's exhausting.

So there we go, that's beef number two.

And actually, I know I said I only had two beefs.

But I've actually got one more.

Let's call it a surprise beef.

Don't you think that people who load the rides load the ride really slowly.

It's certainly something I've noticed on the days when it's been really busy.

The rides are loaded very slowly, I know they have to

take safety into consideration.

Safety is very important.

But you could load a little bit faster.

And I often see these rides going around with lots of additional

spaces that could have been filled.

For example, let's say it's a pirate boat ride, and every

boat takes up to six people.

And because a family only has three people in it, one of the

boats goes round half empty.

Another family, a family of four decide they want to split up and two pairs of

the four want to be in a separate boat.

Well, then each of those boats only has two people, but four additional spaces.

And the staff seem to allow this to happen.

Rather than saying, Sorry, everyone move up, we're going to put some

more people in here, we're going to fill the ride up to capacity.

Capacity means how much in total, something can take.

So you fill the ride up to capacity, to full capacity.

And then the queue would go down faster.

And people would be happier because they wouldn't be queuing for as long.

And this, you know, it makes me think of the days when I worked as a checkout girl.

I have had so many jobs in my life.

I've worked in many different industries, in many different roles.

And one of my favourite, fondest memories of working in kind of normal, everyday

jobs, is working as a checkout girl.

I used to work in a DIY store.

And when it was busy, I loved to set myself the challenge of trying to

scan the products as quickly as I possibly could, while obviously being

very careful, but as quickly as I could to try and allow the flow of

customers to move as fast as possible.

So I would be super, super fast.

I'd be a super-fast scanner.

Beep, beep, beep, beep, eee...

That’s 10 pounds, please.

Next beep, eeee...

Okay, that's 15 pounds, please.

And so, I was like a super-fast checkout girl.

And when I watch theme park loaders, that's not what we call them.

I don't know what they're called theme park assistance,

loading the rides really slowly.

I just think just challenge yourself to do this faster.

Now I'm not suggesting that children are anything like products that are

there just to be moved along quickly.

But my point still stands.

It should all be done a lot faster in my opinion, in my humble opinion.

Despite my three beefs with a theme parks, I do have to say that I still head to the

theme parks on a relatively regular basis.

We have these yearly passes.

So we're trying to make the most of them.

And every time I expect the worst, so I prepare for the worst possible day.

And occasionally, I'm pleasantly surprised.

Like recently it was my son's second birthday, Caspian, he

turned two and we decided to take him back to Peppa Pig world.

So we'd been for Jacob's second birthday, two years ago, and we decided to head

back there for Caspian second birthday.

Now Jacob's a September baby, so it was a nice sunny day when we took Jacob.

Caspian is a November baby, his actual birthday this year was on a Saturday, so

we booked for a Saturday, which I knew was probably going to be a terrible day,

it was probably going to be very busy.

But on the day, it was actually raining.

And I don't just mean a little bit, it was heavy, horrible rain, and it

was grey and cold and a bit windy.

And I thought this is just gonna be a disaster.

But we prepared for the worst.

So we all wore our wellies and our raincoats.

We had the boys in these all-in-one wet suits, like I think like called wet suits,

but they're like rain proof onesies.

And we headed out.

And as we're driving down the motorway, and the rain is just beating down on

the windscreen of the car, and the wipers are going hell for leather.

Hell for leather, it's a funny phrase, it means just going

really crazy working really hard.

So our our wipers were going hell for leather, on the windscreen today.

And this rain is just beating down you can barely see and there's water everywhere.

There's flash flooding, and we're just like, oh, this is gonna be a disaster

today, I bet half the ride won't be functioning because it's too wet.

And we arrive.

And the car park is pretty empty.

So I go first thumb up, ker-ching, there's hardly anybody here

because the weather's so bad.

I hope the rides are still working.

We go in.

And long story short, every ride was pretty much walk on.

So you didn't have to queue you just said I want to go on that ride and you

walked onto the ride, because there were so few people in the park that day.

I guess because of the weather, because of the rain people had

just said, “Nah, not today”.

And because we were prepared for the weather.

But we hadn't even for a second anticipated having a full day

of ride after ride after ride.

It was a really pleasant surprise.

So we actually had a wonderful time.

Because not only did the children get to go on their rides, every

ride that they wanted to go on, we also managed to squeeze in a

couple of adult rides as well.

Just after lunch, we're still sitting in the little restaurant, I

popped to the loo to pop somewhere is to go somewhere very quickly.

I popped to the loo and I saw, out of the corner of my eye, that one

of the big adult rides had no queue, but people were just coming off.

So I thought that's a walk on.

That's a walk on adult ride.

So I shouted to my partner.

"Hey, Nick, if you're quick, you can get on that ride."

And so he was like, "yeah, yeah".

So he jumped up, and he ran onto the ride.

And then he sat down the bars came down and secured him in.

And then he thought, "Oh, no, I've just had dinner.

I just had burger and chips.

And a big drink of..."

I think he had a cappuccino and some fruit juice as well.

And this is a big ride.

"It's gonna make me feel quite sick."

But he was fine.

I took the children on the playground next to it.

He had a wonderful ride.

And then he said, "Anna, why don't you quickly jump on and look after

the boys for a . Few minutes".

So I jumped on.

Now this ride was like, it was like a big circle of chairs.

But you're all facing outwards.

So I'm...

I sit, sit on my chair, my legs are dangling.

And the bar comes down over the top and holds me in.

And there's...

the seat next to me is empty because there's hardly anyone there but there's

someone in the seat next to that.

It's this child who I say child, he was probably like a teenager

so more like 12-13 years old.

And next to him is his dad.

And I overheard him say, to overhear something is to hear

something that's not meant for you.

I overheard him say to his dad, "is this going to be

worse than a plane taking off?"

And his dad looked over and I caught his eye with my eye and we both smiled

at each other like a knowing smile.

"Yes", he said and I said from my from my seat is like "I think it might

be a bit worse than an aeroplane."

Anyway, this poor child.

The ride starts and this circle it kind of moves round but very slowly

it moves around in a circle so you're being spun around but the main

objective of the ride is to swing you.

So this whole circle is being held on this huge kind of pendulum

that swings back and forth.

And it's just swinging this circle of seats up and down and up and

down and up and down, it gets higher and higher and higher until you are

just about your past 45 degrees.

So you start to go into a position of being slightly upside down.

And so then as it's turning you and swinging down at the same time, it

almost feels like you're skydiving, you're jumping out of a plane and

for a second, you feel weightless.

And all you can see is the floor below you getting closer and closer.

And it's terrifying.

And it's so big.

I haven't been on a big ride like that since my day at Thorpe Park.

And even my day at Thorpe Park, you know, it was three minutes of

thrill I can barely remember it.

But I got a shock.

It was an unpleasant surprise how scary this ride was.

And I also had just had dinner.

Although I still didn't know I mean lunch.

So I had a tummy full of food.

And I thought, oh gosh, I hope this doesn't last too long, I

might start to feel a bit queasy.

Luckily, my food stayed down.

I was okay.

But the boy, one, two seats down from me started to get a little bit

uncomfortable as the ride was coming to a stop, he started wriggling and

kind of almost fighting to get out and his dad said "calm down, calm down.

It's done now."

And then this boy just vomited.

He couldn't get out.

So he couldn't go anywhere.

He couldn't lean his head forward.

So he just threw up all down himself, poor soul.

So I'm thankful that it didn't throw up in midair, where it would have potentially,

you know, splattered everybody.

But I did feel very sorry for the poor kid.

And he had to wait, everyone was looking at him and he had to wait to be let out.

And then he just had to spend the whole day covered in vomit.

I did feel very sorry for him.

But anyway, despite that moment, we had a wonderful time.

And my partner also managed to get on a few of the roller coasters.

On some of them.

He even took Jacob who's now four years old.

Jacob loved it.

He's crazy.

He loves these big rides.

And Caspian also, for his second birthday got to go on a big ride.

I took him on a, like a water slide.

So it's quite a large slide with running water down the slide

and you get into a two-man boat.

So there's an inflatable boat, and you sit with a child between your legs.

You hold on and they tip you up and you go down this water slide

and it's over a couple of bumps.

So you feel like you get a bit of air, you lift off the slide ever so

slightly as you go over the bumps.

And they took a picture.

Obviously, on every ride, they take a picture, we went to have a look

at the picture and it was hilarious.

Caspian did enjoy it.

When he got off the ride.

He had a big smile on his face.

But the picture of him going down the slide just looks like he's terrified.

And I was smiling.

So it looks like I'm a terrible mother, terrifying my child, but

I promise he had a great time.

Anyway, we only did it once.

And that was his first big ride.

So because of that momentous occasion, I did actually pay the extortionate

12 pounds to get this one photograph.

Which if you're watching the video podcast I'll be sharing

with you on screen right now.

And so that was my last trip to a theme park.

So at the moment theme parks have been forgiven, in my eyes.

They are back in my good books.

If someone is in your good books, it means that they are...

they've won favour with you.

They've done something to make you feel happy, so you're happy with them.

Here I'm personifying theme parks and saying the theme

parks are in my good books.

They've done something good that I'm happy about.

So for now, until my next visit, I let you off all theme parks.

I do hope that you will consider visiting one of our theme parks,

if you come here to the UK.

My main suggestion is you try to go off-peak so go either during the weekday

or try to go out of season so in the colder months, it will be quieter.

Don't consider going during a school holiday, so a half term or the summer

break, it will just be crazy busy.

And, you know, if you are committing to doing a day when it's going to be busy,

then you might want to consider doing the Fast Track options, whether it's

'reserve and ride' or a fast track system.

But yeah, try and make the most of it, maybe even staying in the

hotel, a lot of them have a hotel adjoined to them, so connected to

as a part of the whole experience.

So thank you very much for joining me in today's podcast, if you would like to have

an option to download the transcript from today's podcast, and if you'd also like

to have access to the interactive read along transcript and if you'd like the

option to take part in many conversation classes live every single week and have

access to loads of ,additional resources, then I would highly recommend you

consider joining my conversation club.

I will leave a link to this and it's very affordable, I have to say.

I will leave a link to it in the description of this podcast

or video podcast or whichever you are consuming right now.

But thank you otherwise, for listening.

Don't forget to give this a rating, a thumb or star.

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Thank you very much for listening to my beef, my rant.

Take care everyone and goodbye!