When Your Kid Handles School Better Than You Handle Uploads!
This week on That’s a Free Bee, I confess to a little podcasting oopsie—some of you might have briefly seen Pod Tales pop up in your feed before it vanished into the digital void. Turns out, between flat audio, 40 failed attempts to say “skeletons,” and a rogue unedited section, I had to pull the plug. But don’t worry, because from the ashes of Pod Tales rises something new, something clever, something with a gavel: Lore and Disorder.
I walk you through why the name works, the vibe I’m chasing (dry wit, sarcasm, spooky-but-true stories), and the big plan to launch the show with ten deep-dive episodes come January. Think history, mystery, and a little “DUN DUN” energy.
Meanwhile, on the home front, Seraphina braved her first holiday club at her new school—navigating anxiety, backpack mishaps, and a rocky start with more resilience than most adults muster before coffee. Spoiler: she absolutely smashed it, and it changed the way we’re looking at her school future.
Oh, and because no episode is complete without a tangent, I take you on a nostalgia-fueled tour of the shops of my youth in Bury—Tandy scanners, stationary havens I can’t remember the name of, He-Man hunts gone wrong, and a pork pie so good it deserves its own fan club. Sprinkle in a Shropshire getaway, a cowboy hat purchase, and a peanut butter milkshake, and you’ve got yourself one jam-packed episode of stories, laughs, and unexpected detours.
Transcript
This is that's a Freebie, the podcast that knows what you did last summer.
Speaker A:And honestly, I'm impressed.
Speaker A:Sit back, relax, unless you're driving.
Speaker A:It's time for that's a Freebie.
Speaker A:Hello, everybody.
Speaker A:Welcome to another episode of that's a Freebie.
Speaker A:I want to start off by saying that some of the more astute of you are really members will have noticed this week that they, very briefly, like, for about two hours, had an episode of Pod Tales appear in their feed, and then it was summarily dismissed and deleted and gone from the waves forever.
Speaker A:You might have had an email saying it was there and it just wasn't when you went and looked.
Speaker A:That's because I uploaded it thinking, yay, here we go.
Speaker A:Pod Tales is finally ready to go.
Speaker A:As I've got this episode that's been recorded for about four or five weeks now, I might as well upload it.
Speaker A:I'm going to upload it on a week where there is an episode of that's a Freebie.
Speaker A:So if you're listening right now, this was last week and then I listened to it and I realized two things.
Speaker A:The audio was off.
Speaker A:I have no idea why.
Speaker A:It sounded really, really flat.
Speaker A:I could not pinpoint where it had gone wrong because it sounded fine when I listened to it initially.
Speaker A:And then I noticed halfway through there was a whole section that I hadn't edited.
Speaker A:I must have.
Speaker A:There was a.
Speaker A:There's a section where I had to talk.
Speaker A:Was talking about, I think, Skeletons, which you'll understand when you listen to the actual episode when it comes out.
Speaker A:And I could not say the word skeletons.
Speaker A:And it took me about 40 attempts and it was still in there.
Speaker A:I don't know how I'd missed it, so I deleted it.
Speaker A:I think what I'd actually managed to do somewhere along the lines because Pot Tails has gone through a lot of iterations.
Speaker A:I'm trying to find a specific tone when I.
Speaker A:When I write the scripts for it, a specific sound for the.
Speaker A:For the show.
Speaker A:Like, I. I don't want it to just be another is a person reading a script.
Speaker A:I want it to actually be like, you know, my personality that comes through the way I would talk about a subject that comes through.
Speaker A:And I've been playing with lots of different ways of achieving that and making it easy for me to also read the script at the same time, because I need to read a script.
Speaker A:We've discussed this before for that particular type of show, and I think what I've done is somewhere along the lines I've Basically managed to overwrite the final version of it and I uploaded the wrong version is I'm pretty sure what happened.
Speaker A:So yeah, it didn't sound great at all.
Speaker A:Anyway, I managed to, I managed to pull it before hopefully anybody heard it.
Speaker A:And if you did hear it, so what you'll hear the next version and you'll be able to see just how much better it is.
Speaker A:That's the whole point of members feed.
Speaker A:You get to go through this process with me now.
Speaker A:That said, there are going to be some changes to the format of Pod Tales in general.
Speaker A:I wasn't going to talk about it this week, but I think I might as well discuss it now while we're on the subject.
Speaker A:Because the will, after this episode is released, there will be an episode coming out.
Speaker A:It's, it's, it's again it's ready to be re recorded but in a different way.
Speaker A:So I, I did also later on that evening that I accidentally uploaded the episode.
Speaker A:I did discover something else as well.
Speaker A:I discovered there's already a podcast called Pod Tales and I found this out purely by accident and I'm sure I done my due diligence before of trying to discover if that was the case and I must have missed it.
Speaker A:Now I think what's probably happened is because it was a segment on this show originally, I don't think I actually double checked all that kind of stuff.
Speaker A:The kind of things I would check beforehand and I missed it.
Speaker A:It's not necessarily that there is a.
Speaker A:Well, there is, there's a podcast called Pod Tales but it seems to be.
Speaker A:It's like I couldn't find it on Apple Podcasts for example.
Speaker A:It's only.
Speaker A:You'll see in web searches.
Speaker A:So it's either no longer running or it's one that's only served by a website.
Speaker A:But still I didn't want, I didn't want the same name as another podcast if I could help it.
Speaker A:And it also meant that the website that I wanted because I, as much as you know, the website is just going to be part of my main website.
Speaker A:I do want a web address that goes straight to the page for it.
Speaker A:It's easier in episodes to be able to say go to this page because it's, it's less confusing for new listeners.
Speaker A:I don't want new listeners to depend on, to be dependent on having listened to this show beforehand because well, that, that's not good business, is it?
Speaker A:So what I decided to do is to try and come up with another name for it.
Speaker A:And it took a While I spent a couple of days thinking about it, I used my old friend Chat GPT to come up with some ideas.
Speaker A:What we've come up with is.
Speaker A:And I think it's very clever, but we'll.
Speaker A:We'll see what you think.
Speaker A:But it is what it's going to be.
Speaker A:I'm sticking with it.
Speaker A:I've rewritten all the scripts to include this new name.
Speaker A:I've bought the new web address, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker A:So it's sticking.
Speaker A:It's Lore and Disorder.
Speaker A:So L O R E and Disorder, which is obviously a take on Law and Order.
Speaker A:I'm even going to try and develop a theme tune that might incorporate the Kun Kung.
Speaker A:We'll see.
Speaker A:Obviously, I can't have that exact feature because it's taken.
Speaker A:Yeah, I thought it worked well because it fits with the idea of the podcast, because the podcast isn't.
Speaker A:You always like spooky things.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's history.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's true.
Speaker A:Stories from the past that are just a little bit weird.
Speaker A:Stories that maybe don't get told often enough, or if they do get told, maybe the wrong part of the story gets told.
Speaker A:That kind of stuff.
Speaker A:And I thought it worked well because we're talking law and we're talking disorder.
Speaker A:It speaks for itself, really.
Speaker A:I think it works quite well.
Speaker A:So that's what it's going to be called from now on.
Speaker A:Law and Disorder.
Speaker A:I've got the website laurandisorder.com which will take you straight to the page for it on.
Speaker A:On bug fixes and improvements.
Speaker A:Excuse me, I've got a cough.
Speaker A:This week.
Speaker A:I've rewritten all of the scripts.
Speaker A:I've spent the last couple of days.
Speaker A:Unfortunately, I've been off work for a week.
Speaker A:I've spent the last several days rewriting all of the scripts to fit the new tone that I'm going for.
Speaker A:So the tone that I'm going for is a bit of a dry humor, sarcastic humor with pop culture references, Sprint coding where possible, but also, you know, some.
Speaker A:Some of these situations, people died.
Speaker A:So obviously I want to be respectful of that kind of thing as well.
Speaker A:And the whole point of the.
Speaker A:Of each one is going to be like a very deep dive into how.
Speaker A:How well, how the situation unfolded, but trying to get to the truth behind it rather than the.
Speaker A:The supernatural.
Speaker A:Like, for example, I've done.
Speaker A:I've done one episode on the Winchester Mystery House.
Speaker A:Now, you may remember, I've done an episode of Pod Tales on that previously.
Speaker A:And in my research, I discovered that actually it's not.
Speaker A:The story that's portrayed isn't really the correct story.
Speaker A:Like the.
Speaker A:If you listen back to that episode, it would be, it would be very interesting to give it a listen before you listen to the released version of it, which obviously isn't released yet.
Speaker A:But what is.
Speaker A:Because you'll, you'll see that I've been able to go a lot deeper into the story.
Speaker A:I've been able to discover that half of the information is just completely untrue.
Speaker A:That's kind of the whole point of it, is to get to the truth of each.
Speaker A:Of each.
Speaker A:Of each story.
Speaker A:So, yeah, I thought I'd just throw that out there.
Speaker A:Now what I'm going to be doing over the course of the next several weeks, I'm going to re record the episodes that I've already got.
Speaker A:I've got 10 already in total ready to go.
Speaker A:So the plan is to record all of them and I'll start releasing them to members.
Speaker A:And the actual podcast is going to launch on the 1st of January.
Speaker A:I'm going to start it in.
Speaker A:So I split my year up into quarters starting in January for the podcast.
Speaker A:It's just easier for creative stuff, or it seems that way to me.
Speaker A:I have a goal for each quarter, which I'll discuss closer towards that time because it's not fully fleshed out yet.
Speaker A:I mean, the goal for quarter one is actually just to get episodes recorded and launched.
Speaker A:But like I say, I should already have 10 recorded by then.
Speaker A:The way I'm hoping to work it is I will only need to record like two a month to be able to keep afloat.
Speaker A:At least two above three would be the goal.
Speaker A:So we'll see, we'll see how that all goes.
Speaker A:I'll.
Speaker A:I'll let you know as we go on.
Speaker A:But yeah, I thought I'd just give you a quick update on how that's going.
Speaker A:It is, it is going along.
Speaker A:I know you're not seeing the fruits of the labor just yet, but it's very close.
Speaker A:I plan on recording that first episode of Law and Disorder, which is not the Winchester Mystery House episode that's epic.
Speaker A:Is going to be episode either 3 or 4.
Speaker A:I can't remember now.
Speaker A:I'm not going to spoil what the first episode is, but it is a completely new topic.
Speaker A:It's a topic that I've not done before.
Speaker A:I think the first over than this one.
Speaker A:The first three after that are topics that I've done before.
Speaker A:But deeper, deeper research better, better explained that kind of stuff.
Speaker A:So it will still Be interesting.
Speaker A:Yeah, I plan on recording that episode on.
Speaker A:I think the plan is a island a week on Wednesday.
Speaker A:So interesting.
Speaker A:Actually, you're listening to this.
Speaker A:Well, if you're listening to this on launch day, it is Thursday.
Speaker A:I will have recorded it yesterday if all goes to plan.
Speaker A:So you should be getting an episode very soon.
Speaker A:I'm struggling a little bit at the moment because the kids are on holiday, so I'm having to relegate myself to the bedroom to record.
Speaker A:And I can hear in here now that I was planning on recording one, recording the first episode like after this, but I can hear the whistling in the room from the, from the microphone that you might not be able to pick it up, but it's very off point.
Speaker A:I can hear the echo, I can hear the reverb.
Speaker A:It's not the best room to be recording in, so I'm probably going to put it off until I'm able to be in a better room for recording, which will be next week, maybe even when the kids go back to school.
Speaker A:Basically, the plan is next week, record one episode, release it.
Speaker A:I'll probably just release a rough draft for you to start with.
Speaker A:I do plan on adding sound effects to the.
Speaker A:The to this podcast, but not overusing them.
Speaker A:So don't worry too much because I don't like it when they use too many sound effects in podcasts either.
Speaker A:And then the plan is, is during the first week when the kids go back to school, I'm off for a week and I'm literally on standby in case Seraphina has a meltdown at school.
Speaker A:So I'm not doing anything that week.
Speaker A:That's the plan.
Speaker A:So I'm going to sit and I'm going to record all 10 episodes over the course of that week and possibly more if I can get more of them written.
Speaker A:I hope between now and then I can write quite a few more and we'll.
Speaker A:We'll see how that goes.
Speaker A:So anyway, moving on to more less rambly topics, let's follow up from last time we spoke.
Speaker A:So last time we spoke, I told you that Seraphina was getting ready to go to Holiday Club at school, which is like a transition thing for year six students going into year seven.
Speaker A:And you know, already all the trials and tribulations that we've had with her school and getting her into the.
Speaker A:Into the what we deem the right school or what is deemed the correct school for the best school for her, I think is the way to put it.
Speaker A:So how did it go?
Speaker A:Well, the first day was Very, very difficult.
Speaker A:She was great in the morning.
Speaker A:She went in just fine, took it on like a trooper.
Speaker A:It was brilliant.
Speaker A:She wouldn't stand with anybody.
Speaker A:She.
Speaker A:She's like this.
Speaker A:She stood, she stood by herself at the side.
Speaker A:Even though she could see all of her friends, you could tell she, she's one of these people.
Speaker A:And I, I again, I remember being like this.
Speaker A:She doesn't feel like her friends want to be her friend, if that's the best way of putting it.
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A:Like, she won't, she won't interrupt them.
Speaker A:She'll wait for them to say to come and talk to her or to call her over.
Speaker A:She'll just stand to the side as if she's not part of the group.
Speaker A:But then once she's in the group, she's.
Speaker A:She's part of the group, you know, she just, she just feels uncomfortable going over and saying, hi, guys, I'm here, you know?
Speaker A:Yeah, it's really strange, but it's not an uncommon thing to see something.
Speaker A:I did notice as well while we were waiting.
Speaker A:She was the only one who didn't take her backpack to school.
Speaker A:In hindsight, yeah, maybe she should have took it.
Speaker A:But there was nothing on any of the correspondence saying, bring your stuff.
Speaker A:It was just turn up, we'll provide everything apart from lunch.
Speaker A:It said bring a packed lunch.
Speaker A:So they may have only had the backpacks off the pack luncheon, but she likes to carry around a separate lunchbox with her.
Speaker A:So it's.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's tough.
Speaker A:Sorry.
Speaker A:I just had to adjust my hearing aids.
Speaker A:I think the whistling sound I'm hearing is actually my hearing aids getting the reverb off the walls.
Speaker A:It's driving me a bit insane.
Speaker A:It's really off putting.
Speaker A:Sorry for your hearing the whistling.
Speaker A:I can't do anything about it, but I have a feeling it might be a me thing rather than a it thing.
Speaker A:So, yeah, she did take a backpack.
Speaker A:She stood on her own.
Speaker A:She, she was good.
Speaker A:She went in when it all and everybody started going in.
Speaker A:But when she came out that.
Speaker A:She came out with the teacher and I thought, oh, this doesn't seem good.
Speaker A:And she pointed, she pointed me out because I was there picking her up.
Speaker A:She pointed me out to the teacher and the teacher came over and she said, we've had a little bit of a tough day.
Speaker A:So I was like, oh, no, what happened?
Speaker A:You know, I was expecting her to have a bit of a difficult day.
Speaker A:What I didn't want was for her to have a devastating day and for her to no longer want to go to that school because that causes issues, because she'll still have to go to that school for a month before the tribunal.
Speaker A:Anyway, it.
Speaker A:It turned out what actually happened was they'd not put her with any of her friends.
Speaker A:So somewhere along the line they've been a mistake.
Speaker A:And they'd mixed her up for a different school.
Speaker A:They thought she came from a different school in the area than the one she went to.
Speaker A:Because what they'd done is they'd grouped everybody with people from their own schools and a bit of a mixture.
Speaker A:So if it was a school that had a lot of pupils, they split them up into three groups and then put people from other schools in them to try and mix them up a bit.
Speaker A:But they made sure that everybody was with at least one person that they knew, but not with Seraphina.
Speaker A:She was the.
Speaker A:She was the only one in her class that she'd been put in that didn't know anybody else in the class.
Speaker A:But Fina being Fina, she didn't say anything.
Speaker A:And not having her backpack, she also didn't have any of the stuff that was required for the lessons.
Speaker A:Now, the teachers said, you know, come and get the.
Speaker A:And get your stuff.
Speaker A:But all the other students, it turns out, have brought stuff.
Speaker A:Probably not all of them, but the vast majority have brought stuff.
Speaker A:So she was too embarrassed to go up to the front of the class and say, I need a pen or I need a pencil or anything like that.
Speaker A:And she also didn't say anything when they said, as everybody got somebody with them that they know.
Speaker A:So she ignored it.
Speaker A:Well, she didn't ignore it.
Speaker A:She was too embarrassed to go up, which I kind of get.
Speaker A:I kind of get, especially when you suffer from pretty bad anxiety.
Speaker A:So she.
Speaker A:She comes to lunchtime and one of her friends from her primary school found her around the corner of the building, cried her eyes out, which is heartbreaking to hear.
Speaker A:Obviously, as a parent, that's not what you want to hear at all.
Speaker A:I almost cried when I heard that she was doing that.
Speaker A:A friend, like, consoled her, took her to a teacher and explained what had happened.
Speaker A:And they were great.
Speaker A:They solved it.
Speaker A:They said, we didn't realize, we're really, really sorry.
Speaker A:Let's see if we can solve it.
Speaker A:You know, who.
Speaker A:Who do you want to go in a class with?
Speaker A:And she picked one of her friends.
Speaker A:And she picked one of her friends who she knows is she.
Speaker A:She said she.
Speaker A:She picked.
Speaker A:I'm not going to give you the other student's name, but she said she said she's very kind and she's very helpful, so I want to go into a class with her.
Speaker A:And she did.
Speaker A:And she said she found the rest of the afternoon to be more enjoyable because there was someone in the class she knew.
Speaker A:She said.
Speaker A:She said, I didn't even sit with her.
Speaker A:I sat at the front because what I'd found is I was struggling to hear at the back.
Speaker A:Side note, she's.
Speaker A:She's got hearing problems as well, or she potentially has hear.
Speaker A:She.
Speaker A:She consistently goes through life going through problems where she has issues hearing, but that when she goes for a test, she passes the test fine or she does really, really badly.
Speaker A:Two tests in a row and then on the third one, she passes it fine.
Speaker A:So they say, oh, we're not giving you hearing aids again.
Speaker A:I've discussed this on previous episodes, so go back and have a listen to previous episodes if you haven't already.
Speaker A:But, yeah, that's also a problem.
Speaker A:So she was struggling to hear.
Speaker A:So she.
Speaker A:She said, all I did is in the afternoon, I sat at the front and I found it much easier because I was able to hear the instructions better.
Speaker A:I was closer to the teacher, so I didn't have to walk past everybody to ask for something, and it was fine.
Speaker A:So she was.
Speaker A:She was actually happy when she came out, which is great to say.
Speaker A:She'd had such a bad morning.
Speaker A:She was happy, which is amazing resilience on her part and is something that ordinarily she wouldn't have been able to handle.
Speaker A:So she's.
Speaker A:She's grown quite a lot in the last year to be able to do that.
Speaker A:So that was.
Speaker A:That was fantastic.
Speaker A:After that, the rest of the week, because she was there all week.
Speaker A:The rest of the week went smoothly.
Speaker A:It went absolutely great.
Speaker A:She loved it.
Speaker A:She really enjoyed it.
Speaker A:She was getting up in the morning and getting ready for school herself.
Speaker A:And she.
Speaker A:She did great.
Speaker A:She went in every day, didn't complain.
Speaker A:She came out every day with a smile on her face.
Speaker A:She even told us that she'd made new friends, which was good because that's always a worry that we have, that she might not make new friends.
Speaker A:She did.
Speaker A:She's got.
Speaker A:She's really excited because there's three people in the same class with the same name and she finds it hilarious.
Speaker A:So that means, because you may remember that we.
Speaker A:We said that this was the pivot point for us.
Speaker A:Do.
Speaker A:If she does well this week, do we cancel the tribunal?
Speaker A:Because it seems like it's not necessary.
Speaker A:We don't want to waste Anybody's time.
Speaker A:We also don't want to risk her getting moved to somewhere she's not going to enjoy if she's doing okay where she is.
Speaker A:And so we've canceled the tribunal.
Speaker A:We filled all the paperwork out for it anyway.
Speaker A:We're still waiting on confirmation if it happening, but we've received confirmation that they've received it, which is bizarre.
Speaker A:Every single email you send, you get a confirmation email that they've received it.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:While it's.
Speaker A:It's good, don't get me wrong, sometimes you have a conversation with somebody over email.
Speaker A:So you might send four or five in the space of five minutes.
Speaker A:And for every one of them you send, you get an email confirming that you've received it.
Speaker A:So if you're, if you're in a rush and you're expecting the, the response and you need to give them an answer, you get it.
Speaker A:You're like, oh no, that's just a confirmation email.
Speaker A:It's a bit frustrating because it's a bit of a weird system for that.
Speaker A:But hey, could be worse, right?
Speaker A:So what else did we do over the holidays?
Speaker A:I said, helen didn't know.
Speaker A:What else did we do over the holidays?
Speaker A:We, we just.
Speaker A:This weekend I've been on a trip to Shropshire.
Speaker A:Oh, my computer just went to sleep.
Speaker A:I don't know if that affected the recording.
Speaker A:I guess we'll see.
Speaker A:We went on a trip to Shropshire.
Speaker A:We went to Shropshire for our honeymoon years and years ago.
Speaker A:Well, 13 years ago now or coming up to 13 years, I think it is.
Speaker A:It was great.
Speaker A:We recently had some friends that moved down there, so we, we went to visit them.
Speaker A:Lovely little place.
Speaker A:I love Shropshire specifically we went to Hereford.
Speaker A:That's not the exact place where our friends live, but it's close enough.
Speaker A:Again, I don't want to dox them on the Internet.
Speaker A:So we went to Hereford.
Speaker A:The reason I mentioned Hereford specifically is that's where we actually stayed because we, we stayed in just in a trip.
Speaker A:It was either a Travel Lodge or a Premier Inn.
Speaker A:Can't remember which it was.
Speaker A:I think it was a Travel Lodge.
Speaker A:We always do.
Speaker A:We love a good Travel Lodge.
Speaker A:So we stayed in, in the Travel Lodge and we went for some food because we drove down after Seraphina finished school on the last eve, on the last day.
Speaker A:Uh, so 2:30 was set off.
Speaker A:It was a three and a half hour drive.
Speaker A:So I was tired and hungry by the time we got there.
Speaker A:So we, we went to an okay diner.
Speaker A:I don't know if you've seen These, they're like just American themed diners.
Speaker A:You go in and everything's got like road signs on the walls.
Speaker A:It looks like a trailer.
Speaker A:A lot of Elvis memorabilia, that kind of stuff.
Speaker A:It's everywhere.
Speaker A:There's a jukebox that.
Speaker A:This one didn't work, you know, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker A:But this one in particular, the one in Hereford, was used in a recent episode of Doctor who.
Speaker A:So we.
Speaker A:I was, I was being sad and looking at photos from the, the recording and trying to see if I could sit in the same seat as shooting out what.
Speaker A:And I don't think I managed it.
Speaker A:But hey, I sat in a lot of seats in that restaurant trying to do it.
Speaker A:It was all right.
Speaker A:It was good.
Speaker A:The food was, was all right.
Speaker A:They, they do, you know, like.
Speaker A:Well, I don't know if you'd use the term gourmet burger, but a lot of places do use this as a term.
Speaker A:But you know, burgers with other things on.
Speaker A:I got a burger that had guacamole on.
Speaker A:Love guacamole.
Speaker A:However it turns out, I don't like it much on a burger because the coldness of the guacamole, it really offsets the heat from the, from the meat.
Speaker A:And it didn't work.
Speaker A:I really don't think it worked.
Speaker A:I wished I'd have gone for something a bit more standard.
Speaker A:You're like a, like a barbecue pulled pork burger or something like that.
Speaker A:That's usually my go to in places like that.
Speaker A:I did have the peanut milkshake, which is exquisite.
Speaker A:Peanut butter milkshakes are the best.
Speaker A:So I had that.
Speaker A:I was really disappointed in the kids food because it was kids eat free, but only if you eat off the kids menu.
Speaker A:And I mean, to be honest, I kind of wanted Toby to have one of the bigger, better burgers because he doesn't like chips or anything like that.
Speaker A:So he would have, it would have been fine just having a burger if it were big enough that it would have filled him.
Speaker A:He's not a, he's not a kid who eats a lot really.
Speaker A:It's just a kid who likes his food.
Speaker A:You know, he knows what he likes and so he got a burger off the kids menu.
Speaker A:And it was the flattest, floppiest thing that I'd ever seen it honestly, it just looked like a regular burger from McDonald's but on a sadder looking bun.
Speaker A:However, the actual meat he loved, he said it was the best burger he'd ever had.
Speaker A:So it can't be that bad.
Speaker A:It just, it just wasn't as good as what he could have had.
Speaker A:But, you know, kids eat free, so why not save the money there where possible?
Speaker A:Although it was quite expensive though, that I think about it.
Speaker A:So I don't know how.
Speaker A:How it worked out better for us, really.
Speaker A:I think I feel like it would have been better if I just let him have a regular meal.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Anyway, the village itself that our friends now live in is amazing.
Speaker A:It is literally just a little village.
Speaker A:So they have a VF1 shop and that shop is community run, so they all have shares in the shop.
Speaker A:They all take turns at working in it and stuff like that.
Speaker A:Not everybody does, but people take turns at working in it.
Speaker A:They have like an area, like a bench area where they.
Speaker A:Because they all grow stuff in the garden.
Speaker A:Because of course they do, it's in the country and anything that they've grown too much of, they just pop on this bench and you can just go and help yourself.
Speaker A:So they.
Speaker A:They never really need to buy fruit and veggies, which, again, amazing.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Everybody knew everybody.
Speaker A:The.
Speaker A:The bus that drove around town didn't have bus stops.
Speaker A:You just waved it down wherever you were.
Speaker A:If you wanted to get on the bus, you just stick your hand out, guy pull over and say, yep, you know, you get it on, he get on and away you go.
Speaker A:It was.
Speaker A:It was fantastic.
Speaker A:I'd absolutely love to live in a little village like that.
Speaker A:The benefit I've got is I could drive, so I could obviously drive further out to go somewhere a little bit more populated if I needed to.
Speaker A:My wife, on the other hand, can't.
Speaker A:So living somewhere like that, whilst it would be great, it wouldn't be very fair on her.
Speaker A:So, yeah, we did.
Speaker A:We probably won't be moving out there anytime soon.
Speaker A:And then a day after.
Speaker A:Not the day after the day we visited them.
Speaker A:Sorry, the day after was the day we actually visited them.
Speaker A:We went to Ludlow, which is a great place with a castle, little market.
Speaker A:It's just one of those little village towns as well.
Speaker A:We had a wanderer around there, Toby got himself a cowboy hat and we're talking like proper, like good quality cow by heart.
Speaker A:He suits it so well.
Speaker A:It's amazing.
Speaker A:I can't believe he suits it as well as he does.
Speaker A:He loves it.
Speaker A:Doesn't take it off, goes everywhere with him.
Speaker A:So, yeah, we had a really good weekend.
Speaker A:It's been a great, like, I. I had like almost a week off.
Speaker A:It was.
Speaker A:It was like six days.
Speaker A:One of the best six days I've had this year up to now it was, it was nice, it was calm, it was relaxed and it was fun, which is what you want from your days off, right?
Speaker A:All right, now getting on to something a little bit more random.
Speaker A:If you recall, last week I was talking about the Bob shop and it just set me on a bit of a nostalgia trip.
Speaker A:I started thinking about shops that I used to visit, I used to enjoy when I was younger, like probably what Seraphina's age is now.
Speaker A:I used to enjoy taking a walk into Barry, where I used to live and having a wander around the shops.
Speaker A:And there was a few shops that I was always going every single time, without fail.
Speaker A:And I thought I'd reminisce about some of them with you right now because maybe some of you listening to this podcast that grew up in the same area that might remember these shops and be like, oh my God.
Speaker A:Yeah, I remember that.
Speaker A:So let's start with the first shop I would always visit when I got into Bury.
Speaker A:It's a shop called Katsu Reese and it's basically a little delicatessen.
Speaker A:I believe it's still there.
Speaker A:I've not been to Bury in years.
Speaker A:I am told it's still there.
Speaker A:It's moved from where it was.
Speaker A:It used to be a stall on the market.
Speaker A:I think now it's actually a full fledged cafe.
Speaker A:There is actually one in Manchester as well.
Speaker A:I've always assumed it's the same company, but not the same vibe.
Speaker A:Like the one in Manchester is a.
Speaker A:Is a.
Speaker A:Is a deli and a restaurant.
Speaker A:Whereas the one I used to go to, it was honestly just a market stall.
Speaker A:And what they did the best was they did beef sandwiches or they did pork sandwiches as well, but particularly the beef sandwich.
Speaker A:I used to go, I used to say, can I have a beef sandwich?
Speaker A:And they basically give me beef that was like been essentially just broiling in its own juices for ages.
Speaker A:So it was full of flavor.
Speaker A:And they slapping on another bottom muffin for you with a bit of butter on.
Speaker A:And it was the best thing.
Speaker A:It was like a pound twenty or something like that.
Speaker A:And it was amazing.
Speaker A:That would always be my start to my trip to Bury.
Speaker A:I'd walk straight there, grab myself a sandwich and I'd have a wander around and then usually I'd pop into Tandy.
Speaker A:Tandy was an electronics company.
Speaker A:You Americans probably know it as Radio Shack because it was basically the UK version of Radio Shack.
Speaker A:I actually do believe they were the same company because all of the products inside of Tandy said Radio Shack on them.
Speaker A:So they must have Been the same company.
Speaker A:I didn't do any research before this.
Speaker A:I just tried to remember as many of the stores that I could.
Speaker A:Tandy particularly.
Speaker A:I used to like going to look at all the recording equipment, funnily enough.
Speaker A:I used to like all the mixing equipment and the audio interfaces and things like that.
Speaker A:Never owned any of them, but I loved, I loved the idea of it.
Speaker A:I did buy one thing from Tandy, and that was a police scanner.
Speaker A:Years and years ago, I used to, like, listen to my police scanner.
Speaker A:It could listen to radio frequencies.
Speaker A:So you get like the police, you get ambulances.
Speaker A:You sometimes get the helicopter India 99 flying over.
Speaker A:You'd get, you know, you'd hear taxis and all kinds of stuff like that.
Speaker A:And you pick up CB radios as well.
Speaker A:I did actually used to have a CB radio in the back, in the back shed.
Speaker A:Maybe I'll talk about that one day, who knows?
Speaker A:But, yeah, it was, it was, it was a great shop.
Speaker A:I used to love Tandy.
Speaker A:Another one?
Speaker A:Uh, no, these are actually two separate shops, but I'm going to link them together.
Speaker A:Uh, there is Vibes and there is Museum.
Speaker A:Vibes and Muse were both record shops on opposite sides of the town.
Speaker A:Muse used to be in an area that was either called Union Arcade or is now called Union Arcade.
Speaker A:I can't quite remember how the.
Speaker A:How the have a naming of it all went, because it all changed and became what's known as the Mill Gate now.
Speaker A:So hard to say for certain.
Speaker A:But yeah, record shops used to like going in there and they would always have an area where you could listen to music.
Speaker A:They'd have, like, the latest albums on it.
Speaker A:I'd like.
Speaker A:Used to like going in there and listening.
Speaker A:I never really bought anything.
Speaker A:I wasn't really a music buyer or if I did, I was.
Speaker A:It was more poppy stuff.
Speaker A:But Muse, Muse and Vibes were like more rock stuff and, you know, like metal and things like that.
Speaker A:I used to.
Speaker A:I used to like going in there.
Speaker A:I think Muse was a little bit more like alternative rock, that kind of stuff.
Speaker A:I enjoyed it in.
Speaker A:In both of those shops.
Speaker A:Muse was always quieter, though, so you.
Speaker A:You felt like you were being washed when you're in there.
Speaker A:Didn't like that.
Speaker A:But hey, you know, it's a shop after all.
Speaker A:Next one is Victor Wright's Electronics.
Speaker A:Again, no idea if this is still there, but it was basically just an electronics shop.
Speaker A:But it was.
Speaker A:It was all secondhand stuff, owned by a guy, funnily enough, called Victor Wright.
Speaker A:Years and years later, my stepdad actually knew him.
Speaker A:In it turned out.
Speaker A:So I got to.
Speaker A:But I ended up getting to know the guy who worked who owned it.
Speaker A:Lovely guy.
Speaker A:The reason I like this shop in particular though is they sold retro games.
Speaker A:So they always had a lot of.
Speaker A:Well, I say retro the retro.
Speaker A:No, they weren't retro then.
Speaker A:They always had like the windows were just full of game cartridges but more importantly, important, importantly they had wiring and connectors for almost everything you could think.
Speaker A:I was always working on some sort of project of wiring up my TV to some mad speakers or something like that or wiring up a record player to a surround sound kit and just all kinds of weird stuff like that.
Speaker A:I used to.
Speaker A:My bedroom back then used to just be wires everywhere leading to some random.
Speaker A:I, I, I had all kinds of stuff happening.
Speaker A:I used, I used to have my guitar, I used to play guitar back then.
Speaker A:I used to have it.
Speaker A:So it played out of a speaker that was on.
Speaker A:There was a speaker in every corner of the room along with the like the main amplifier and I wired them all together and I had some weird stuff going on.
Speaker A:I got all of my stuff from Victor Wright Electronics.
Speaker A:So yeah, that was a good place.
Speaker A:Again I used to like all the games that they had there as well.
Speaker A:What else was on my list?
Speaker A:This is a random one but I did actually used to enjoy going in here.
Speaker A:Discount daisies.
Speaker A:It was a shoe shop.
Speaker A:It was where my mum always used to take me to get my school shoes.
Speaker A:However, they did sell trainers as well back then.
Speaker A:I think I've discussed this before.
Speaker A:We couldn't really afford like decent trainers I suppose, or named brand trainers.
Speaker A:What I want was decent, they just weren't named brand.
Speaker A:So I used to like going in and looking at all the trainers and the things that I, I could get.
Speaker A:One day I used to sit there going when I've got my own money I'll get myself a pair of these.
Speaker A:And then I realized how expensive they were and now I can't bring myself to buy them and I walk around complaining that I've got foot pain even though all I need to do is buy some good, good, good trainers.
Speaker A:So yeah, there was another shop called the nss it was a newsagents might still be there.
Speaker A:It had changed names last time I was in town but I'm sure it was still there.
Speaker A:It's where the, so the post office used to be in there.
Speaker A:It wasn't always.
Speaker A:I remember when they built the post office in there it was controversial at the time because it was getting rid of the main post office and none of the older people liked it.
Speaker A:My grand in particular was horrified by the thought that she had to go into a shop to go to a post office.
Speaker A:So that was interesting.
Speaker A:But I again used to like this one because it was.
Speaker A:It was a shop that sold everything.
Speaker A:So think a news agents, you know, newspapers and sweets, chocolate, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker A:But massive.
Speaker A:It was enormous.
Speaker A:It was like.
Speaker A:It was like the size of a Hollister would be.
Speaker A:No, it was huge.
Speaker A:And this old toys.
Speaker A:So that's why I went in there.
Speaker A:They saw toys and all kinds of knickknacks and bob.
Speaker A:Bobs.
Speaker A:Bits and bobs is the term I was looking for this old models.
Speaker A:I used to enjoy building models.
Speaker A:So I used to like to go in there and check everything that I wanted to buy.
Speaker A:Again, never actually buy it, but look at the things I wanted to buy.
Speaker A:So that was good.
Speaker A:I did in absolutely Wreck My Eye once as well.
Speaker A:I remember being in there with my dad and we were looking at something on one of the shelves and I leaned forward to get a closer look at something that was on the shelf.
Speaker A:And you know the metal pegs that stick out from the shelves smash my eyeball into one of them and it.
Speaker A:Oh man, did that.
Speaker A:I can feel it now.
Speaker A:My eyes squelched and everything.
Speaker A:My dad had to pull my head back to get my eye off it.
Speaker A:How it didn't damage my eye is beyond me.
Speaker A:Like everything was fine.
Speaker A:I had to go to the hospital and everything.
Speaker A:Have it checked out, but it was fine.
Speaker A:Yeah, really.
Speaker A:I can still hear the squelch there.
Speaker A:Literally went in my eye.
Speaker A:Blah.
Speaker A:Gross.
Speaker A:But yeah, used to like going there still.
Speaker A:There was a shop called Pram Land that I used to like going to.
Speaker A:This one sold prams.
Speaker A:Basically it was.
Speaker A:It was.
Speaker A:Basically it was like a Mamas and Papas of its time.
Speaker A:But, you know, like a.
Speaker A:What?
Speaker A:Good God.
Speaker A:What do you call a shop when it's not a chain?
Speaker A:A cell phone shop.
Speaker A:Like it's got a name.
Speaker A:Why has my brain gone blank?
Speaker A:Anyway, whatever it's called.
Speaker A:I was going to say a mom and pop store, but hard to say that when you're talking about mamas and papas.
Speaker A:So, yeah, it was called Pram Land.
Speaker A:It's all prams.
Speaker A:It's all toys.
Speaker A:I used to like going in there because it sold he man figures.
Speaker A:And there was one specific he man figure that I was never able to get.
Speaker A:It was called Manny Faces.
Speaker A:And I'd seen that figure in that shop once and I wasn't able to Buy it.
Speaker A:And it drove me insane.
Speaker A:So I always used to go in there to see if it was there.
Speaker A:And I always said, if it was there, I'll buy it.
Speaker A:And it was never there.
Speaker A:I never got that figure.
Speaker A:Not once.
Speaker A:Ah, what a shame.
Speaker A:Another shop called Stones is.
Speaker A:This was a bakery.
Speaker A:This wasn't necessarily my.
Speaker A:One of my always go into shops, but this is a shop that when I started working, I worked in Berry.
Speaker A:And Stones's was where I'd go for my lunch almost every day for a while.
Speaker A:Anyway, there's another shop coming up.
Speaker A:That is where I always went for my lunch.
Speaker A:And I'll explain that in a moment.
Speaker A:But Stones is.
Speaker A:Was great.
Speaker A:They basically your general bakers.
Speaker A:Bit of a deli as well, actually.
Speaker A:You could get fresh meats from there as well.
Speaker A:But it was a bakery.
Speaker A:They do or they do.
Speaker A:They did.
Speaker A:They don't anymore because they're not there.
Speaker A:They shut down while I was still in Barissa.
Speaker A:But they did the best pork pies.
Speaker A:So what they would do is they would make a pot pie.
Speaker A:They would chop up apple into tiny little cubes.
Speaker A:They would caramelize it.
Speaker A:They would spread it on the top of the pork pie.
Speaker A:Oh, man.
Speaker A:Apple and pork pie with caramelized apple was the best.
Speaker A:I've never had a pie as good as that in all my life.
Speaker A:Animal magic, which was a pet shop, used to like going upstairs and looking at the fish downstairs.
Speaker A:They would have, you know, like those little things called little furry thing.
Speaker A:Can't remember the names of things today.
Speaker A:Good God.
Speaker A:What are they called?
Speaker A:Little.
Speaker A:Little tiny things that are covered in fur.
Speaker A:They put food in the mouth and the cheeks.
Speaker A:Get big hamsters.
Speaker A:My God.
Speaker A:Remember the name of hamsters?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:They used to have hamsters and gerbils and things like that.
Speaker A:You know, little fairy things downstairs.
Speaker A:And then upstairs they had a massive aquarium.
Speaker A:Or it felt massive at the time.
Speaker A:It was probably tiny if I was looking at it now.
Speaker A:But yeah, they had.
Speaker A:They had that upstairs.
Speaker A:So I used to like going in there and looking at the fish again.
Speaker A:That's a shop that closed down.
Speaker A:Used to be an army and navy store.
Speaker A:Used to enjoy going in there and finding all of the, I don't know, like knives, compasses, things like that.
Speaker A:It's just nice to look around.
Speaker A:Never bought anything from there when it came to clothes.
Speaker A:Was a shop in Barry.
Speaker A:And some of you again, if.
Speaker A:If you happen to be from Bury, will remember this shop.
Speaker A:Stolen from Ivor.
Speaker A:Great shop.
Speaker A:Got all my jeans from.
Speaker A:Stolen from Ivor pretty much Everything that I wore at one point was like, somehow called Stolen from, like, had the label Stolen from Ivor on it.
Speaker A:What I liked about it the most is it was just clothes.
Speaker A:It wasn't, you know, branded.
Speaker A:It was just.
Speaker A:I don't like wearing branded clothes if I can help it.
Speaker A:The only thing I'd maybe get away with, but I don't mind, is the little Lacoste crocodile.
Speaker A:I'm okay with that.
Speaker A:That's a tiny little bit of branding.
Speaker A:But I'm really not into wearing stuff that has the brand of the company on that made it.
Speaker A:I'm not here to advertise your brand.
Speaker A:I want clothes that are comfortable and nice looking or, you know, nice looking, in my opinion, which I realize is probably not the same as everybody else is because everybody else likes to be branded in the word represent and things like that.
Speaker A:Don't have a problem with people doing that.
Speaker A:But if I'm going to walk around wearing your clothes with your logo and your name on it, I want to be paid for that.
Speaker A:I. I am not free advertising and too many companies get away with that.
Speaker A:So, yeah, Stolen from Iva used to love it because of all the.
Speaker A:Well, because of the clothes.
Speaker A:I used to, like, get my clothes from there.
Speaker A:It wasn't expensive.
Speaker A:It was one of those places that always had like three pairs of jeans for a tenner.
Speaker A:I mean, that's my kind of clothing.
Speaker A:I'm fine with that.
Speaker A:You don't get that anymore, do you?
Speaker A:And the final shop on my list, well, not the final shot.
Speaker A:The final shop that I can name is a shop called Julia's.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Julia's was basically a food shop.
Speaker A:It was a sandwich shop.
Speaker A:So you could go in and order a sandwich, you could go in and order hot food.
Speaker A:She'd do specials of the day.
Speaker A:It was a sort of a little hidden place that not many people knew was there because it was just randomly in the middle of a load of shops.
Speaker A:It was one person that ran it, she only opened at lunchtime because she just.
Speaker A:Basically she was there to provide lunch to all of the people that worked in the shops and whatnot around it.
Speaker A:But she was great.
Speaker A:She was a great laugh, she was fun.
Speaker A:She would.
Speaker A:She would say to you, when you go in on one day, what do you want tomorrow?
Speaker A:And she'd make it like.
Speaker A:She'd be like, yeah.
Speaker A:If you were like, oh, yeah, it's winter, we fancy a stew.
Speaker A:She'd be like, all right, I'll make a stew tomorrow, that'll be the special of the day.
Speaker A:It was brilliant.
Speaker A:We used to have a tab with us, so we'd.
Speaker A:We'd.
Speaker A:Basically, we'd go and you could order whatever you wanted and at the end of the month, on payday, you get your bill and you pay it.
Speaker A:And if you didn't pay your bill, you couldn't order anything else on your tab.
Speaker A:You could pay for stuff.
Speaker A:Like if you was.
Speaker A:If you said to her, look, I'm having a difficult month this month, can I give you half of it?
Speaker A:She'd say, yeah, but you can't add anything more to your tab until you've paid the rest of it off.
Speaker A:So you could go in and still buy your lunch every day and she'd not have any issues with you doing that whatsoever.
Speaker A:I don't think anyone ever needed to do that.
Speaker A:But she always, every month she'd be like, you sure you could afford it this month?
Speaker A:It's okay if you can't.
Speaker A:You know, it's great.
Speaker A:Used to rack up a bill of about 200 quid a month for lunches and you just go in on payday and pay it.
Speaker A:And it was a lot.
Speaker A:But back then it was.
Speaker A:I was what, 17, 18.
Speaker A:I could afford it and I used to just like being able to go and get whatever I wanted.
Speaker A:It was fantastic.
Speaker A:So, yeah, the final shop, though, on my list, I cannot remember the name of, and I've been trying all week to remember the name of it.
Speaker A:I've.
Speaker A:Been.
Speaker A:I've literally been research.
Speaker A:I've been looking at maps of old Barry.
Speaker A:I've been looking at photographs in the.
Speaker A:In the buried Times newspaper, in the.
Speaker A:In the archives, trying to find pictures so that I could maybe find this particular shop.
Speaker A:And I can't find it anywhere, and it's been driving me insane.
Speaker A:So I'm going to tell you about it now and if anybody happens to know what it is, fantastic, please send me some feedback.
Speaker A:Bug fixes and improvements dot com.
Speaker A:Let me know because I'd love to know the name of the shop.
Speaker A:This is my favorite shop to go in.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So easiest way I can think of describing it is where Muse was.
Speaker A:The shop, the record shop, it was.
Speaker A:It was in a tunnel area.
Speaker A:So there was a.
Speaker A:There was a roof over this area.
Speaker A:I think it was called Union Arcade or Union street, something like that.
Speaker A:I can't remember exactly what it was called and sadly, I can't remember any of the other shops that was down there.
Speaker A:All I remember is on top of it was a car park, right?
Speaker A:But.
Speaker A:But underneath this, this arcade, if you were Going into it from the side where Max and Spencer's was, there would be a row of shops.
Speaker A:On the right hand side there was a shop that was basically upstairs was a bookshop, downstairs was a stationary shop.
Speaker A:And it was, it was again, it was a, it was like a mom and pop type store.
Speaker A:It wasn't a chain or anything like that.
Speaker A:When they knocked that area down and rebuilt it for the mill gate, it never opened up anywhere else or not that I know of because I remember being sad that it got closed and I remember going in there and one thing I love, I still do now but I don't have any use for it anymore.
Speaker A:But I always loved it as a kid was stationary.
Speaker A:I used to love like notebooks and different pens and all kinds of stuff like that.
Speaker A:I used to go in there and try out all the different pens before I bought them and they had areas where you could practice, you had writing, you could, you could.
Speaker A:Every single pen that they sold, they had a version of it that was out that you could open and you could refill yourself to see if you was able to refill it.
Speaker A:They had different, different papers to write on.
Speaker A:They, they knew everything.
Speaker A:Everything about stationary was great.
Speaker A:Then upstairs was a bookshop, which is again one of my other great loves.
Speaker A:Oh, it was, it was an amazing shop and I can't for the life of remember what it was called.
Speaker A:What I do remember is I didn't know what it was called for a very long time.
Speaker A:I used to just go in and then I remember one day trying to explain to my mum the shop that I'd been to and I could and she was like, well, what's it called?
Speaker A:I couldn't remember the name of it.
Speaker A:So I remember specifically going and looking and I feel like it was called something and something, but honestly, I have no idea, genuinely no idea.
Speaker A:I've not been able to find a name in the shop anywhere.
Speaker A:I've Even tried using ChatGPT to help work it out and ChatGPT is just like, dude, I'm sorry but there are just no records from that time.
Speaker A:You've no chance.
Speaker A:So yeah, if, if you can find the shop, fantastic.
Speaker A:But yeah, that's all I've got for now.
Speaker A:If you happen to be from the area and you've got more shops from, from that time or from your own childhood that you want to shout out, feel free to drop me a line.
Speaker A:I'll, I'll, I'll introduce them into some follow up at the end of the next episode.
Speaker A:Before I finish off with my final joke of the of the show.
Speaker A:Just want to say thank you for listening.
Speaker A:Thank you for listening to my inane ramblings as usual.
Speaker A:As always, if you've got some feedback, go to bug fixes and improvements.com if you want to give me a topic suggestion for Law and Disorder, same place for now.
Speaker A:There will be another address soon that you can go to for that and continue to send me draft topics.
Speaker A:I have gained quite a few.
Speaker A:I'm not at a stage yet where I'm going to launch Draft or even work on it.
Speaker A:To be completely truthful, As I explained last time, it is on a bit of a hiatus while I get pod tails up and running, but draft will eventually be made.
Speaker A:It's still something that I'm looking at and actively thinking about.
Speaker A:I'm learning a lot from launching podtales actually, about the way I want to do things, so that will help in the future.
Speaker A:But until then a man and a woman who had never met before but who were both married to other people found themselves assigned to the same sleeping room on a transcontinental train.
Speaker A:Though initially embarrassed or uneasy over sharing a room, they were both very tired and fell asleep very, very quickly, he in the upper berth and she in the lower.
Speaker A:At 1am the man leaned down and gently woke the woman, saying, mom, I'm really sorry to bother you, but would you be willing to reach into the closet to get me a second blanket?
Speaker A:I'm awfully cold.
Speaker A:And she said, I have a better idea.
Speaker A:Just for tonight, let's pretend that we're married.
Speaker A:Wow, that's a great idea.
Speaker A:I exclaimed.
Speaker A:Good, she replied.
Speaker A:Get your own damn blanket.
Speaker A:And after a moment of silence, he farted.
