Retro Yakking

As northerners, we all know that Blackpool is Britain’s answer to Las Vegas. But a new art house style video marketing campaign pitches the town to French tourists — a relatively untapped market if ever there was one — as the Paris of the North.

This is, in my opinion, a somewhat unfair comparison. I suspect you could not purchase sticky rock anywhere in France, let alone Paris, and even if you could it wouldn’t be as good. Why? Because it wouldn’t have the words ‘Blackpool Pleasure Beach’ running through the middle!

1. More people have died throwing themselves from the top of Blackpool Tower than the Eiffel Tower. As our friends across the pond might say, go Blackpool!
2. Escargot does not go well with mushy peas, sticky rock or Lancashire hotpot.
3. Blackpool’s beach may be dirty, but at least it’s better than Paris’s, which is pretty much nonexistent.
4. Since Blackpool is made completely of plywood, it has an average of 100 more fires per year than Paris. This makes it the ideal holiday location for your typical pyromaniac, which I have no doubt a good number of Retro Yakking’s readers are.
5. You will see no French-style grass inspecting football at Bloomfield Road, only good old-fashioned gritty, physical, proper British football. Thank goodness for that.
6. The Golden Mile is more fun than the Champs-Élysées. Where’s the amusement arcades in Paris? As an added bonus, there is considerably less traffic, especially in off-season.
7. Blackpool has TVR, Paris has… what? Renault and Citroen? Pfft, gimme a break.
8. Blackpool has the Doctor Who Museum, Paris only has the Louvre. I know which I’d rather go to, and I’m not even a Doctor Who fan.
9. Everyone speaks English. Forget the fact that in Blackpool, the accents are so thick you cannot understand them anyway. Agh, I’m beginning to defeat my own argument here.
10. No need to take the car or even a bog-standard bus in Blackpool, for there is an extensive tramway. It’s cheap as chips and, once again, there is no traffic, only a fat bloke sat in front of you stuffing his face with doughnuts.

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So the next time you consider taking the Eurotunnel to Paris, consider the Vegas of the North a much more favourable alternative. I shall leave the last word on this matter to Wikipedia. Ah, how I love unverified, unsourced stereotyping.

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