Sunday 4 August 2013

A Tour Round Norfolk: Great Yarmouth

Great Yarmouth (or as it is more accurately known 'Not So Great Yarmouth') is situated on the east coast of Norfolk and is allegedly a popular holiday destination, though with whom I dread to think.
In the interests of accuracy, and not having visited Yarmouth myself since I was a child, I felt I should do some research before blogging, and so checked on the tourist board website. Never again shall I believe a word I read on the web. It is billed as 'Norfolk's Premier Beach Resort'. Now, I don't know what it is about the word 'premier', but for me it manages to convey the complete polar opposite of what it is meant to. Anything with 'premier' in its name conjures up images of mediocrity and tackiness and if you are fooled by it then you deserve everything you get ... or don't get.
Next it says (and I quote) "Norfolk is known for dry and sunny weather throughout the year."?? OK, so Norfolk may get slightly more sun than some places, let's say Siberia, and is drier than parts of Sri Lanka during monsoon season, but I don't think we can claim to have dry and sunny weather all year.
I realise I'm not selling it so far (Norfolk Tourist Board won't be advertising on my site) but what of Great Yarmouth's attractions? Well, there is the Merrivale Model Village bearing the slogan 'The Same Sh*t But Smaller'. You can go to the Marina Leisure centre and spend a few blissful hours surrounded by hoards of screaming children. Best of all though is Britannia Pier, which I think was called the 'Pleasure Beach' in my day and consisted of an over-priced helter-skelter and a death-trap of a roller-coaster, all topped off nicely with candy floss and salmonella hot dogs. Now, far be it for me to put you off, but when Dante wrote his 'Inferno' and described the 9 levels of hell, he clearly hadn't been to this particular Norfolk attraction which would surely be level 10. Interestingly, level 6 is called 'The city of Dis'. Now we have the town of 'Diss' in South Norfolk so maybe Dante had visited these parts after all...?

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