British Seaside Simulator

October 2, 2023 1:09 AM

British Seaside Simulator by Mefi's own malevolent, "so we can endlessly relive the summer that's coming to an end." (info) Best enjoyed with a cup of builder's in a stainless steel travel mug. [via mefi projects]
posted by taz (44 comments total)

That is an alarmingly accurate simulation of many of our family holidays in the 70s, other than the wipers aren't noisy enough.
posted by dowcrag at 1:15 AM on October 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

It's particularly apt this year because it has mostly pissed it down all summer.
posted by benoliver999 at 1:44 AM on October 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

Even more accurate would be putting the tea on the dashboard to cool down, thus fogging the inside of the windscreen, and then being able to hear my parents arguing about this (even though it happens every. single. time.) and looking for a cloth (because for some reason NO WAY were they going to turn on the fans to direct air onto the windscreen).
posted by dowcrag at 1:47 AM on October 2, 2023 [7 favorites]

A seagull just shat on the windscreen! Which is a better outcome than the seagull that shat on my head when I was sharing a pram with my twin sister, Dover (NH) 1955. A few years later, when we lived in Portsmouth (OH) my family (were) walked along Southsea prom on the reg'lar on Sunday morning - except our Mum, she was making Sunday dinner. We noted, not without envy, the folks who parked their cars bonnet-seawards windows-closed and were reading the Sunday paper. I see now that my life was a bracing cliché.
posted by BobTheScientist at 1:48 AM on October 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

The seaside simulator is lovely & true, but the World's Biggest Freddo is an edible of sublime beauty.
posted by chavenet at 1:57 AM on October 2, 2023 [4 favorites]

is it raining, gotta be raining
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:58 AM on October 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

The radio feeds are live. That is just beautiful.

I got screamed at by a seagull in Margate. In the simulator, I mean, I've never been to Margate.
posted by Molesome at 2:22 AM on October 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

I love this.
posted by chronkite at 2:36 AM on October 2, 2023

The fine weather version, of course, is where you set up camp in deck chairs on the grass verge next to the busy car park, rather than walking the 5 minutes to the actual nice beach.
posted by pipeski at 3:12 AM on October 2, 2023 [4 favorites]

For most of the beaches, if you watch the sea carefully you'll notice something nasty & fairly topical...
posted by malevolent at 3:48 AM on October 2, 2023 [4 favorites]

I also was taken back to the 70s by this. They could really do with a 70s alternative car dashboard, so you can almost feel the elements seeping in.
posted by biffa at 4:10 AM on October 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

This reveals a great deal more about English attitudes towards different cultures and England's problematic role in global colonization than any joke has a right to.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:16 AM on October 2, 2023

One of the destinations is Weston-super-Mare. That's where John Cleese came from, and Roald Dahl attended school for a while.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 5:23 AM on October 2, 2023

Oh, this is just damn delightful and fun. This is the internet I want.
posted by Kitteh at 5:28 AM on October 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

(American living in the UK) The one time I went to Camber Sands in winter, the weather was far nicer than any time I've been to any British beach in summer. That said, I think it only rained like 6 times in London this summer, so apologies to y'all living in the North who apparently had a wet one.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 5:32 AM on October 2, 2023

is it raining, gotta be raining

"The camp with the difference
Never mind the weather..."
posted by mikelieman at 5:43 AM on October 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

Saw this in the b3ta newsletter the other week, it was a bit too close to the bone for me, because that is genuinely the interior of my car (2014ish Toyota Yaris), and I spent entirely too much of this alleged summer staring at relentless British rain through its windscreen. Very odd when someone makes a web-toy out of part of your actual life.
posted by tomsk at 5:45 AM on October 2, 2023 [5 favorites]

Turned on the radio in Weston-super-Mare and got “Reelin’ in the Years” just as a bird shit on the windshield.

I’ve never been to the English seaside, but this was also effective as a reminder of many crap weather days in coastal Massachusetts beach towns in the 70s and early 8Os. It’s possible there’s more to them all having English names than I thought.
posted by ryanshepard at 5:51 AM on October 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

You're not wrong. Some of those vistas remind me of eating in the car after getting lunch from Sullivan's on a rainy March or April day.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:59 AM on October 2, 2023

Click on the rear-view mirror...

Honestly, I kind of genuinely like this. Sitting looking out at the ocean with a cup of tea and a sandwich, listening to the radio in the rain? That's not a bad way to spend a day. And the rain washes away the seagull poo much more effectively than in real life, which is satisfying.

If I am forced to have a beach day, this is the kind I want. I don't particularly like exposing myself to ultraviolet radiation while lying on a bed of pulverized rock and immersing myself in saline solution, but this kind of beach day, I can get behind.

Perhaps it is relevant that I, too, am from costal Massachusetts...
posted by Xiphias Gladius at 6:00 AM on October 2, 2023 [6 favorites]

This is the most skeuomorphic streaming audio interface I've ever seen.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:07 AM on October 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

One of the destinations is Weston-super-Mare. That's where John Cleese came from, and Roald Dahl attended school for a while.

A-and don't forget Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare
posted by chavenet at 6:16 AM on October 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

I dislike sunny beaches. Rainy ones are my jam, as well as run-down towns in a former empire.
posted by signal at 6:16 AM on October 2, 2023

That said, I think it only rained like 6 times in London this summer, so apologies to y'all living in the North who apparently had a wet one.

I don't know what Saharan cul-de-sac of London you live in but it was pissing it down most of the summer here in East London. Which, don't get me wrong, I'll take over the +40 degree days any and every year.
posted by slimepuppy at 6:30 AM on October 2, 2023

For most of the beaches, if you watch the sea carefully you'll notice something nasty & fairly topical...

This reveals a great deal more about English attitudes towards different cultures and England's problematic role in global colonization than any joke has a right to.

I don’t get it.
posted by zamboni at 7:02 AM on October 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

I laughed out loud at the sandwich.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 7:09 AM on October 2, 2023

London weather data for this summer.

June was pretty good, but then it progressively went to shit peaking in late July, exactly when schools break up and trips to the seaside happen.

(it didn't rain at all for nearly four weeks in May/June but wasn't warm, which is the other kind of British seaside weather)
posted by grahamparks at 7:27 AM on October 2, 2023

I'm in the US and it confirmed what I'd long suspected which is that Oregon/Washington beaches are not that different from British beaches. Rainy mostly, not that warm, rocky a lot of times except where it is not. It took me until my twenties to realize people like the beach because it's warm and sandy where they are.
posted by fiercekitten at 7:37 AM on October 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

Synchronicity! I got Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams" on the radio in Moelfre. Thunder only happens when it's raining ... When the rain washes you clean, you'll know, you'll know. Sadly, though, I'm out of sandwich.
posted by taz at 7:54 AM on October 2, 2023

"I'm in the US and it confirmed what I'd long suspected which is that Oregon/Washington beaches are not that different from British beaches."

I was just going to say... looks exactly like the Oregon Coast except the steering wheel is on the wrong side.
posted by cybrcamper at 7:57 AM on October 2, 2023

I drive a lot for work and also need daily naps so many naps are taken in my car, and I love it when it's raining hard, hitting the roof just inches from my head. I love it so much that even when I'm home if it's raining all night sometimes I'll still go out to the driveway and sleep in the car. My wife does not understand.

I wish the sound would continue even when the browser tab does not have focus.
posted by hypnogogue at 8:54 AM on October 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

I love this, you mad genius. If only windshield wipers were that effective on seagull crap IRL.
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 9:01 AM on October 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

I don’t get it.

The first bit refers to the water slowly turning brown (a comment on how much sewage regularly gets pumped into the sea).

I also don't get the second comment, I'm afraid.
posted by dng at 10:48 AM on October 2, 2023

I particularly liked the weather in Rhosilli.
posted by oddman at 11:07 AM on October 2, 2023

exposing myself to ultraviolet radiation while lying on a bed of pulverized rock and immersing myself in saline solution

You make it sound so romantic!
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:16 AM on October 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

I've never been to the seaside (or anywhere else, alas) in Britain, but I clicked in and randomly chose Jura as my destination, turned on the radio, and got utterly fabulous streaming jazz from Argyll FM as the rain came down on the windshield (sorry, windscreen).

This is delightful and wonderful and I'm SO glad you posted it, taz, and so very glad you made it, malevolent!
posted by kristi at 12:24 PM on October 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

This reveals a great deal more about English attitudes towards different cultures and England's problematic role in global colonization than any joke has a right to

What
posted by ominous_paws at 12:59 PM on October 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

I once took a motorcycle trip along the oregon coast which was reminiscent of this. Foggy and cold the entire way. We turned inland just before the CA border and it was sunny and 80 degrees within a few miles. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by maxwelton at 1:14 PM on October 2, 2023

The windshield wipers smearing seagull crap over the window is a nice touch. The horn is really nice, too. Boy, I can really just honk myself silly with that.

I knew I should have saved the sandwich for later, but I would very much like to take this magical flask of endless tea home with me. However the sandwich was regretful.

And, great, now I have to go to the bathroom and I can't seem to get out of the car.
posted by loquacious at 1:27 PM on October 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

However the sandwich was regretful.

"There is a feeling which persists in England that making a sandwich interesting, attractive, or in any way pleasant to eat is something sinful that only foreigners do.

'Make 'em dry,' is the instruction buried somewhere in the collective national consciousness, 'make 'em rubbery. If you have to keep the buggers fresh, do it by washing 'em once a week.'

It is by eating sandwiches in pubs on Saturday lunchtimes that the British seek to atone for whatever their national sins have been. They're not altogether clear what those sins are, and don't want to know either. Sins are not the sort of things one wants to know about. But whatever their sins are they are amply atoned for by the sandwiches they make themselves eat." ― Douglas Adams
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:41 PM on October 2, 2023 [4 favorites]

I'm in the US and it confirmed what I'd long suspected which is that Oregon/Washington beaches are not that different from British beaches. Rainy mostly, not that warm, rocky a lot of times except where it is not. It took me until my twenties to realize people like the beach because it's warm and sandy where they are.

I love the beaches of the PNW even more than the warm, massive stretches of sand of the ones I knew from where I grew up in SoCal. I liked surfing and being in the water more in those place but I never liked being too warm very much, and walking around barefoot on endless stretches of hot sand and asphalt as a kid was like walking around on hot coals all the time.

Many of the beaches around LA and SoCal are all the same, too. Sand, water, west to southwest view out over the water. Some have more nooks and crannies than others but it's all mostly the same.

But the beaches of the PNW, especially around Puget Sound? So many nooks and crannies. Trees right down to the water. Nicely sandy in some places, but dramatic and rocky elsewhere. Huge piles of amazing driftwood and logs all over the place.

And if you don't like the view or weather at one beach you can just move over to the next nook or cranny and try something new. And since "going to the beach" isn't some kind of lifestyle choice with acceptable rules and fashion here like it is in LA, no one looks at you funny if you just want to sit somewhere and stare at the water or read a book, and they're just way less crowded and a much more pleasant and peaceful solitary kind of experience.

I used to have to go out of my way to find this kind of interesting textures and more dramatic feeling beaches in LA, and even those are all rather too sunny and crowded.

Anyway, I would say that PNW beaches are more Nordic or Japanese than English or British, despite similar weather. We practically have fjords. And I don't think that the whole concept and novelty of having temperate forests march right out to the water will ever wear off.

It's so nice to have some shady trees right on the beach when it's too hot and sunny out, and if you get bored you can pile up a little driftwood shack to lounge in, or even make a little beach fire because there's no one around to tell you to stop.

Granted, going into the water will take your breath away and even give you hypothermia in a hurry, even in the warmest months.
posted by loquacious at 1:46 PM on October 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

So many nooks and crannies. Trees right down to the water. Nicely sandy in some places, but dramatic and rocky elsewhere. Huge piles of amazing driftwood and logs all over the place.

There are places like that in Oregon too...just gorgeous.
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:26 PM on October 2, 2023

Ford: "Where are we?"
Arthur: "I hardly like to say this, but it looks like the sea front at Southend."
Ford: "God I'm relieved to hear you say that?"
Arthur: "Why?"
Ford: "Because I thought I must be going mad."
Arthur: "Perhaps we weren't rescued after all. Perhaps we've... died...."
Ford: "What's that meant to mean??"
Arthur: "When I was young I used to have this nightmare, about dying. I used to lie away at night screaming. All my school friends went heaven or hell, but I got sent to Southend!"

(from the radio version of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, animation to the audio with relevant bit in it)
posted by JHarris at 9:59 PM on October 3, 2023

This, but you are listening to the English team get smoked by NZ at the Cricket World Cup yesterday. Sorry….not sorry, count back those boundaries.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 2:23 PM on October 6, 2023