Transcript of Premium Bonus 043 - Transcript

Charlie:
Hello and welcome to the British English podcast with your host, Charlie Baxter. Today I thought I'd go over my recent experience in the south of Spain. My best man or co-best man, I should say. Harry took me to the south of Spain for a stag do. A stag do. Well, Harry, straight away. Let's get into it. What is a stag do? And hello. How are you? Thank you for being on the episode.

Harry:
Thank you. Hello. Good to see you. Yeah. A stag do. So it's a bachelor party. It's a British way of saying that right? Before the man goes and gets married, he goes away with his friends. Or in this case, friend. And they have a holiday where they normally drink lots and do silly things. But ours was an unconventional stag do. We've been saying that throughout it or we were saying that throughout the holiday, from the very start till the very end. But we were kind of reminding ourselves throughout this holiday because it was just a really nice holiday that it was a stag do, weren't we? But every time we noticed we were doing something that wasn't at all 'staggy'. It wasn't anything like the kind of activities you normally do on a stag do. We would say "STAG STAG STAG STAG STAG", wouldn't we?

Charlie:
We would. Yeah. It was a little in-joke and I shared it with Stacey and she bloody loved it. She really enjoyed that. Like when you would pass me a little lemon and ginger tea or something and you'd be like, "STAG, STAG, STAG, STAG, STAG.

Charlie:
Yeah. Let's go back. A stag do is a party for a group of men to really like have some fun with the groom that is about to get married. And typically they all get drunk and sometimes strippers are involved, aren't they?

Harry:
That's often like the climax of of A stag weekend. Often they take place over a couple of days. Sometimes it's just a one-night thing. We did six nights, which you could claim is very laddy. You know, that's some serious, serious stamina there, isn't it? [Yeah] Considering we were drinking at least half a bottle of wine every night. Yeah. Stag. Stag. Stag.

Charlie:
Yeah. We said over the whole period of 6 to 7 nights, we probably consumed as much alcohol as one big night. Maybe two.

Harry:
Yeah. That's it. Or over the six nights, we probably consumed the amount that you would on a conventional stag do, which may last from 1 to 2 days.

Charlie:
Yes. Would you say that the typical locations at the moment for British people to go on a stag do are like Budapest or Prague or maybe.

Harry:
Yeah, it's places where booze is cheap. Yes, that's where people choose to go. I was speaking to a friend the other day and he said that one of his mates has just kind of confirmed his stag do. They're just making those plans and they're going to...can't remember [Charlie laughs].

Harry:
Somewhere like it was like it was somewhere like Bucharest. It wasn't. It wasn't that, but it was like that. What's the capital of Latvia? It might have been that.

Charlie:
Oh, that is a pub quiz question that I would fail on. Capital of Latvia. Riga.

Harry:
Riga. Riga. Wasn't Riga, actually. It was somewhere... Riga got my finger on the trigger. Yes. I don't know! But yeah, there. Maybe it was the capital of Lithuania. I'm not sure. But. Or Estonia. It was one of these kind of, are they eastern. God I'm so thick, these like Eastern European middle kind of mid, middle Europe, perhaps.

Charlie:
Right. Mid middle Europe.

Harry:
These cities are [well at least you're not calling it 'rigger'] they're very cheap to go to and the alcohol tends to be quite cheap. And what we always say is, "Oh yeah, that's a really good night out. Oh, you have a really good a really good night out there." That's what British people say. "Oh yeah, Riga's a really good night out. The beer costs like oh I dunno, a quid, about quid for a beer like there's this really good, really good strip club. You can just do everything you need, you get your beers in your hotel, pop down the local pub and you just get absolutely smashed and you pop down the strip club. And then there's a good kebab shop on the corner and Bob's your uncle - you've got a great stag do.

Charlie:
And you know, that just screams to me - Culture! Just, you know, you're really absorbing the culture of the country, which is exactly what we aimed to do. But no, we didn't have any. Did we have cheap booze? We did actually have fairly cheap wine in so we went to Malaga. Then we went to a surprise destination that Harry took me to, and then we went, that I will disclose later on in the episode. And then we went on to a beach, it's a city, isn't it Cádiz?

Harry:
Yeah.

Charlie:
I just thought of a good way to get over the way to pronounce a city without sounding pretentious and without saying it wrong. Do you want to hear it? Go on. Just mock the extreme version of the right way to do it.

Harry:
Do you mean be racist?

Charlie:
No, no, no. I don't know how that's racist, but as in, like, say, for example, Paris. You'd say Paris.

Harry:
Right. Okay. But that's wrong, though, isn't it?

Charlie:
What is it?

Harry:
So wait? Well, they probably say Paris.

Charlie:
Paris?

Harry:
Paris they do that little 'r', wouldn't they? [Paris] No the throaty 'r'. [Paris] Paris.

Speaker3:
Paris.

Harry:
But okay, so you say the best way is to try and say it in a jokey way, but in the authentic way that the locals would say.

Charlie:
Yes, that's what I mean.

Harry:
It's a good idea. You can't do that constantly, though, when it's like the second or third time you say you're talking about your trip to Paris and you've got to say Paris every time. Like, yeah, me, me, yeah. Me and Stacey would enjoy Paris with a really nice time. Oh, the coffee in Paris, wasn't it lovely, Stacey?

Charlie:
No. But then you've established that you know the way to say it, and then I'd feel comfortable with the default British one.

Harry:
Okay. I went to Cádiz, and we just had a lovely time. I like Cadiz. It just sounds awful.

Charlie:
No, you could say, Yeah, yeah, I really like it is? Yeah, it's nice. I think that because the worry I have is that somebody is going to correct me and say, actually it's this and they're referring [to] the real way that the locals say it. But you, you don't want to come across pretentious.

Harry:
Okay. You want to prove that you know everything. That's first and foremost. You don't want to be wrong and you want to prove to everyone that you know. And then you can resort to like the, the prats, the plonker's way of saying it.

Charlie:
I think that's what I'm doing. But I just want to show that I am aware of how they say it, but we say it like this.

Harry:
Okay. I think that's, that's fine. You've got my support. Yeah. I think that's I think that's good. I can't wait to hear you doing it in action.

Charlie:
I can't imagine you're. You seem too keen to adopt this one.

Harry:
To adopt what? Càdiz.

Charlie:
No. My suggestion.

Harry:
Your technique, your method. I think it's good. I'm not against it. I was playing devil's advocate. I think it's probably a good way to do it. But there's certain ones where it might just be confusing. So like, Càdiz sounds very different, VERY different, I think to Cadiz.

Charlie:
Yeah.

Harry:
To the point where it might confuse, like if you're telling an English person about where you went, you say Càdiz, they might not even recognise the sound of that place. Whereas if you said Cadiz, then they probably will know it. [Yeah] I was corrected by I think. We were talking to that woman on the plane who was really scared of flying. [Yes] And I think she might have even corrected one of us the way we said it. We were like, oh, we're going to Càdiz. And you made an effort to say it properly. She went, Oh, Cadiz, Yeah, yeah. No, no not Cadiz.

Charlie:
Although actually thinking thinking about it, when somebody who has a different accent to me in British English, they say a word and I don't recognise it immediately. And then I confirm the word by using my accent. Stacy gives me a hard time for this. Like, for example, I don't say it like this, but if one of Stacy's relatives was to say "she was on the grass" and I'd say, "Oh, the grass."

Harry:
Oh, right. The grass. Yeah? Carry on. Yeah, yeah. Just keeping up with the story.

Charlie:
I'd be, like, checking that I understood the word, but I'm, it sounds like I'm correcting them with my pronunciation of the word grass. It does sound like that, but I'm not meaning that. But maybe this lady was saying that she was just, like, confirming that she's on the same page with us. Oh, you mean this city that I think is this pronunciation?

Harry:
Yeah, that's true. Yeah. She might not have been correcting. Yeah, you're right. That's so funny. Someone who's travelled and lived in as many different places as you, you still find the need to say. "Oh, grass. Yeah, grass. Just checking. I have understood grass there."

Charlie:
As I said.

Harry:
I guess the place you've lived the in the least different places, probably the UK. Well you have lived in a couple of different places haven't you? But you've explored the world so much. You've lived in more different countries than you have different like counties in the UK.

Charlie:
It is fair, but still, the majority is the UK. I had 20-25 years in the UK and 10 or 23 in the UK and ten outside of it.

Harry:
Oh yeah, in terms of years, yeah. But that was, that was not the stat that I just pulled out actually, Charlie.

Charlie:
But the grass comment that was just..

Harry:
I stand by my previous stat.

Charlie:
The grass comment was just an example. I don't correct the word grass. Anyway, that lady that said, Oh, Cadiz. Yes, she was, as Harry said, was on the flight with us and her partner, he was a bit of a lad's lad, wasn't he? He was a 60-year-old old boy and he liked to tell us stories of him back in the day. I think he would have loved to go to places like Budapest and Prague to have a real lad's stag. And he did, didn't he? He told us about that I think.

Harry:
He told us some stories that weren't at all funny. Really. He was a man's man. He was a lad's lad. And he.. I guess there's g.. I want to say there's nothing wrong with that. But there are things that are wrong with being 'a LAD'. You know, there are indisputably negative traits that come with being a LAD. You know, that I think most people would find quite unpleasant. When he found out that we were on an unconventional stag do his, he looked like he just, I don't know, just discovered that his dog is deceased. He looked very, very disappointed, didn't he? [Yeah] He was like, oh, my God, you guys are letting down males everywhere.

Charlie:
Yes. Yeah. He thought the world had come to an end. Like the generations beneath him were no longer masculine enough for the men. Yeah, he was very disappointed. [That's it] And he said a funny comment that wasn't funny in any way. When he realised it was just us two. He said, "Oh, it's it's because you don't have any friends isn't it. That's why you've not got big stag group. You haven't got any friends have you?" I wanted to show him that I've got at least 500 friends on Facebook, but I didn't bother because I didn't have any data on the plane.

Harry:
Yeah, I've got 900. How many have you got? How many friends have you got on Facebook? Mate?

Charlie:
Yeah, none of them pick up the phone, but they're still following my Facebook that no one uses. Yeah, it was a funny response that "you've got no friends, isn't it? Yeah, because you've got no friends"

Harry:
It was a deflating start to our stag, but we quickly picked up the pieces and had a bloody lovely time. Did you have a nice time, Charlie on your unconventional stag?

Charlie:
I, I felt a bit lonely. I wanted about 15 other men to bully me and put shots down my bottom. No, I absolutely loved that holiday. I came away like the next days after the following days, after coming back to England, I kept wanting to text you saying, I fucking love you. I loved that holiday. It was such a nice week. So yes, I very much appreciate that you put that on for me. Yeah, we started off in Malaga and we focussed on practicing our Spanish because you've been helping me with my Spanish lately and we. Do you think we accomplished that a little bit?

Harry:
Yeah, massively. I don't think we ever resorted to like or very rarely did we resort to English right when speaking with native speakers. Only when they opened up the conversation with us in English did we did we use English? And like we both were in it from the word go. Like we, you know, we threw ourselves into it. And you did. It was amazing. Remember that first conversation we had when we checked into our apartment in Malaga? The first location. And we had this lovely old couple greet us and show us around their flat. And this was your first, like, conversation with a native speaker for I don't know how long or and I don't know if you've spoken with many Spaniards, but and these weren't they weren't teachers. They weren't speaking slowly or anything. They were just whatever came out of their mouth came out at a rapid pace. And we were there speaking to them. And it was it was amazing. [Yeah] It was amazing. It was great.

Charlie:
It was a really nice feeling after they had left. I mean, I was enjoying it, obviously, but it was.

Harry:
"I'm so glad you're leaving. Bye. Adios!"

Charlie:
I was loving it, but equally, I was a little bit like, oh, sometimes I don't know exactly what they're saying, but, you know, just like a few Spanish words and saying, saying just one question that makes sense helps them understand that they can keep talking in Spanish to me, yeah, I think that's yeah, I think that helps.

Harry:
Yeah. It's hard isn't it when they, when they get carried away and they don't quite know what your level is or whatever. [ Yeah] It can be like, "oh my God, why is he still talking to me? Why is he saying so much at such a fast pace? What is what? Oh, God. Oh, God. Harry, come back. Come back."

Charlie:
Yeah. Harry's level of Spanish is incredible. And that lady actually said that some of her friends who had been there 20 years didn't have the level that Harry has. Your fluency is incredible.

Harry:
I think it's it's not where I would like it to be, but it's decent. But I completely believe that her English friend who's been there for 20 years still hasn't got much fluency because yeah, we've spoken about that a million times, right? The British, the average Brit's attitude towards learning languages. [Yeah] Doesn't surprise me but, yeah. Oh I see. But no, it was nice. It was a nice compliment. It was a nice compliment.

Charlie:
Well, I'm glad you didn't say that to her in Spanish.

Harry:
No me sorprende, no me Sorprende, señora. Ciao. Gracias.

Speaker5:
I'm laughing because I understand. I'm not surprised.

Charlie:
And I think what worked for for us or for me particularly, was that you have that fluency. So whenever I was a little bit stuck, I could lean on your skill and then they would stay in Spanish and then when I would understand again, I could come back in and and join the conversation. Rather than us all accepting defeat and resorting to English. I think it was a nice combination that. I liked it a lot.

Harry:
It was, it was a very nice combination. I think just even if our levels were more similar, it would still work. It's nice to have a partner, isn't it? I remember when we were travelling in in Italy. Cinque Terre. Um, it was, uh, we had, we were like a team, weren't we? And we were, we were going around challenging each other and, and challenging ourselves to just speak up in the native tongue and try our best. So it's nice to have that kind of an accomplice that's with you. Supporting you.

Charlie:
Yeah, that's true. But I actually feared before going on that trip that because your level is a lot more than mine, a lot greater, I thought that I would end up feeling nervous in front of you trying these sentences and stuff because I've been with natives before and I've felt like there's no point almost, or like I can't even get to anywhere close to worthy of trying. So yeah, it was a nice combination. I really liked it. So we did. Yeah, we did Malaga for two days and we explored the old city, didn't we? [Yes] Oh, sorry. The. The Old town.

Harry:
Yeah. Malaga was really, really nice place. We found some nice tapas bars and the weather forecast was was awful, wasn't it? That was a big part of our, you know, the start. We were. We were worried about the weather a bit. Maybe you weren't as worried as as I was, but because you don't like, you know, extremely hot temperatures and you'd actually rather it to be kind of a bit more mild and stuff. But I was like, you know, the second location, the mystery location that I hadn't told you about, I was it was, really kind of the success of that was more resting on nice weather because the the outdoor bit there was so lovely and I thought I could I was picturing us there sitting outside, drinking beers, playing cards, having a good old time by the pool. But if the weather had stayed rubbish, it wouldn't have been so great. So I remember in Malaga being a bit worried about that when the rain was, you know, coming down. It was spitting, wasn't it, for most of a day. Do you remember our first day when we discovered the white wine and we, we had a whole day just kind of wandering around in the spitting. We had a lovely time, but that weather wasn't what you picture when you imagine a week in Spain.

Charlie:
No, it wasn't exactly what you imagine. But I do prefer that weather over like 40 plus degrees. I fear that was a reason why we didn't go to Seville, actually, because last year a lot of friends went to Seville at the end of May and it was a heat wave at like 40 plus. That would have been my worst nightmare. I was happy to take a slippery sort of path wherever we went. We chose the wrong shoes on the first day and we paid the consequences. I was walking around like very slowly, like I'd broken both legs and everyone.

Harry:
I don't know if you'd be walking, if you'd broken both legs, but yeah, yeah, I think I would have been pushing you around in a wheelchair and then I'd end up breaking both of my legs. But yeah, we were walking around. We were kind of sliding, kind of like skiing in a way. Like cross-country skiing. Yeah, we're sliding our feet around. I've clearly never been cross-country skiing before.

Charlie:
nor have I, but..

Harry:
But we're walking like penguins we're we? [Yes] We were kind of hobbling.

Charlie:
Yeah. Hobbling from tapas bar to tapas bar. I learned a little bit about tapas culture, which is to go from place to place, focusing on their main dish and not scoffing your face at one place, ordering like seven dishes all at once. It was a really nice experience doing that, and I think we got a lot out of the place for that. And then, yeah, we went on to the second place and before we go on to the second place though, I wanted to see if we can compare at all. So let's see, were there any activities we engaged in on on the holiday that you would say are similar to a traditional stag? I mean, we drank a lot of wine.

Harry:
Yeah, we drank a lot of wine, but we weren't bingeing. No, we weren't bingeing. Exactly. There was one night, which we'll get to, where we did kind of binge, but we weren't bingeing. We were savouring our wine. We weren't drinking them slowly. [No] But we weren't guzzling wine as you might guzzle beer on a stag do. [Yeah] It wasn't drinking as a sport, was it?

Charlie:
No. And even having wine would probably be frowned upon on a proper stag.

Speaker3:
Oh. Unheard of. [Unheard of] Unheard of.

Charlie:
A litre of beer and get through it as quick as possible.

Harry:
So alcohol-wise, alcohol was always present. You know, there was there wasn't one, there wasn't a day that went by where we didn't drink, perhaps maybe the last day because you were so hungover. But even even so, I had one glass of wine because I'm such a LAD. Otherwise.. no, the drinking wasn't majorly staggy It wasn't majorly staggy [No] What other stag-related things? What are the other typical things you do on a stag? You humiliate the stag, right?

Charlie:
Yeah.

Charlie:
Humiliate the stag, give them challenges to do. I mean, I guess you challenged me to confront some of my fears with my Spanish speaking like on the last stag do I did. A lot of the challenges included him going up to strangers and making a fool out of himself, like doing a magic trick or pretending to do a magic trick or like. Or like, hugging.

Harry:
Oh, my God, we should have done that.

Charlie:
Or, what was it? Hugging the most alpha male in the room or, and, like, not letting go. Another one was, I think, pretending to do a break dance or.

Harry:
I love these. These are brilliant. But yeah, that kind of thing works so much better in a group, doesn't it? W

Charlie:
Yeah. Imagine you just laughing.

Harry:
That just wouldn't work. [No] It wouldn't work with two people, would it? No, it doesn't work.

Harry:
There's a time and a place for things like that.

Charlie:
And that's why you don't go on a stag do just with one person.

Harry:
I love the magic trick idea, hugging the biggest alpha, that's so good.

Charlie:
I think one of the the least stag-like moments on our trip was on the first day, actually, we went to the old town and we found the castle. Was it the castle? Is it called a castle?

Harry:
Uh huh, yeah.

Charlie:
And we went to the top of the castle. We were looking over the city and Harry got out a poem and he started teaching me this poem in Spanish. And we were just thinking about the words and appreciating the poetry in Spanish. And I don't think you could beat, that would be the most. Well, can I say feminine? It's not even feminine.

Harry:
It's very feminine. It's very anti-stag. It's not at all staggy and it's worse or it's better than that. You know, we walked around and you were trying to memorise it the whole time while walking around this castle. So it was a cultural activity. That's like a no-go on a stag. There can't be any smidgen of culture, can there? That's a that's a big no-no on stag dos. And on top of that there was poetry, which is no, there can't be anything artistic. And then you were actually learning something, so you were growing as a person and and developing yourself. I'd say that's that's another big no-no on stag dos. If anything, you should part of your soul should die.

Charlie:
Yes.

Harry:
On these stag dos, you should go back a lesser being. That's true.

Charlie:
A lesser being. And anyone who has come in contact with you think of you as a lesser being.

Harry:
Yeah, definitely. They should think you're a twat. Yeah.

Charlie:
Look at that topless, arrogant, uncultured twat.

Harry:
I guess we should caveat this by saying that we have both been on [Yeah] 'Real stags', and we've both really enjoyed them as well. [Yeah] They're great. And I laughed my head off when you told me about these stag challenges that your friend had to do. It's a really different experience and for me, I'm going to look back on this trip as a bloody great holiday. It was so nice, but it was always present that it was it was more than just a holiday. So I always had in my mind that it was your trip and it was your kind of it was your stag. It was just a different kind of thing. And we spoke a bit about like, you know, how you're feeling about the wedding and, you know, saying goodbye to single life. I don't know. I think you said goodbye to single life a long time ago, but it was always there, wasn't it? Yeah. The fact that we were on this. Yeah. So it did separate it and distinguish it from other kinds of holidays.

Charlie:
And I feel like that's why you gave me a striptease every evening.

Harry:
Yes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I went above and beyond there. I went above and beyond.

Charlie:
Yes, exactly. Okay. Are you ready to tell everyone where we went for the mystery location?

Harry:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we. We haven't even mentioned that we had a car, so we rented a car from Malaga airport, and Charlie was the designated driver all in Spanish.

Charlie:
That was a really good moment for me. Do you remember? That was the first interaction. And I went through the legal things pretty much all in Spanish. I mean, we could read it.

Harry:
Yeah, that was amazing. Yeah. Yeah. I was really in awe of you. Really? And there was something that I didn't really understand, you know, something that I get confused by even in in English when they start selling you insurance and stuff. And Charlie got it better than I did, and I was like, God, this guy is going to absolutely smash it, as they say. And we had a yeah, it was a really successful interaction.

Charlie:
Yeah, it does help that.

Harry:
And then we set off on the road.

Charlie:
Yeah, we set off on the road. I was just saying it does help that I've hired a lot of cars and I know kind of the annoying process that you've got to go through. But yes, we set off on the road and yeah, again, it was a bit of a culture shock having to be on the right side of the road again. And yeah, take in the the driving culture in Spain. It wasn't too aggressive though. It was quite nice. I think people drove quite pleasantly. Oh, but the narrow roads were quite tricky weren't they? In the heart of the city centres.

Harry:
Did some stops in small towns as well with quite narrow streets. So yeah, we had this car and after Malaga we, we set off to this mystery location and I put it into Charlie's SatNav without him seeing the final destination.

Charlie:
We have come to the end of part one, so feel free to take a break from your listening practice, but if you're happy to keep going, then we're now moving on to part two of this episode. Thanks so much for being a premium or Academy member and enjoy the rest of the show.

Harry:
It was a different kind of location. Me and Charlie had talked about wanting to do some kind of retreat - Buddhist kind of meditation retreat. And I'd looked around, but it was proving quite [difficult] it wasn't going to happen. There wasn't any kind of retreats available in the south of Spain at that time. I was looking for somewhere that was kind of remote, but, you know, beautiful with more or less close access to a city, if we wanted to. In case Charlie wasn't a fan of the place I'd taken him to. And yeah, I just wanted something a bit different. And I found this place on Airbnb, which was converted caves. So apparently a lot of people live in these these cave houses outside Granada in the south of Spain. And I found this one place, Almagruz or something like that. And yeah, it was like a little complex of maybe 5 or 6 caves in a kind of semicircle, a lovely pool in the middle, which was freezing and just chairs-for-days, just chairs everywhere. And a nice view of some some mountains. I thought, yeah, this place looks this place looks cool. But when we rocked up there, the weather was horrific, wasn't it? Yeah, like torrential rain. Yes. And we were on a dirt path and it was like you were probably thinking, where on earth have you taken me? And the weather. It was just I was thinking, "This is awful, this is so bad. This was not a good decision".

Charlie:
So we got to another place first because the GPS didn't quite go to the location that we had in mind. And it was the back of like a very small town and flooding. So I was a bit unsure where we were ending up. But eventually we got to the place after another dirt track and I was very happy. It looked really cool straight away. I think I liked the the fact that it was different. It was really different. Just never slept in a cave before. And when I say cave or when we say cave, it's not painting the right picture really, because it was kind of like a nice accommodation, but just no windows. Like they had completely refurbished this cave into a nice, cute little Spanish cottage kind of feel, I guess.

Harry:
Yeah, it was quite cottagey. And you look up, but you look at the ceiling and the walls and you see that it is, in fact, a cave. Yeah, like it's all kind of curved and cavey.

Charlie:
Like an igloo kind of, bit igloo-like. But there were also a bunch of cats, weren't there?

Harry:
Yeah. There were these little cats that belonged to the to the owners of the complex and they kind of, they, they'd wander into your cave whenever they fancied a little snack basically.

Charlie:
Yeah.

Harry:
It was one of those, I don't know what they call those doors that kind of like split in half. [a stable door] A stable door, yeah. And the cat. So we'd often have the bottom half of the door shut and the top bit open to get some light in because it's a cave. So it's quite dark so we wanted to let as much natural light in as possible. And the top half of the door provided quite a nice window. The cats would jump in wouldn't they. They'd they'd just jump in and they'd be just kind of roaming about trying to help themselves to our Jamón (ham) and tortilla ( Spanish omelette).

Charlie:
Yeah. Which we were fine with, but they were very loud like constant miaowing. [They were crying a lot] they had to get out, eventually. We gave them their chance, but they blew it. They blew it with, you know, mouthing off constantly.

Charlie:
But, uh. Yeah, they also had some kittens as well. We saw the kittens because of the owners of the of the caves. They came over with a basket of kittens which again, you know, that screams 'stag' doesn't it?

Harry:
A very staggie. Yeah, that was a very, that was a very non-staggy moment wasn't it. Incredibly non-staggy. But yeah, the weather was lovely that, that next day, the first night what did we do? We stayed in and had tortilla and jamon and bread didn't we? We had like tostadas.

Charlie:
I can't remember.

Harry:
We cooked a meal on the second night. Yeah we did lots of.. it was, it was like a retreat for us really that, that location. [Yeah] We drank, we drank a fair bit, but we just kind of sat around having a nice, peaceful time. It was kind of like you'd do on a coupley holiday, really. We cooked for ourselves and spent nice time like by the pool.

Speaker3:
Yes.

Harry:
Played lots of cards.

Charlie:
I was going to say, we played a lot of cards. We fell in love with the golf, a game called golf. A card game, not the sport and played every day, didn't we? I got really into that. We got very good because I then came home and played it with Stacey and she was rubbish. She was absolutely. She was, yeah. Not even worthy of my playing with me, now. I'm a week ahead of her.

Harry:
I don't even want to play that game with anyone. I don't even want to play that game with anyone else. I don't think because we've created so many rules. Yeah, it's a good game to play because you can just keep adding rules that you come up with and it makes it quite interesting, quite complex, and so it becomes special for you and that person because you've kind of made the game your own. [Yeah] So now I don't really want to play that game with any other...

Charlie:
That's very nice. I'm glad we've both ruined that for everyone. The other thing we did, which was unexpected that I hadn't seen coming, was we decided to smoke.

Harry:
Oh, God, that's. That's a bit Staggie actually. That's a bit staggy. [yeah that was]

Charlie:
And I think that was the reason that I felt like I wanted to. I don't know why. It felt like I've got these kittens, I'm writing poetry. I've got to have a cigarette in my hands.

Harry:
Yes, You suggested that on the first night. I think you were like, I feel like, shall we smoke for this week?

Charlie:
Yeah.

Harry:
Shall we have a shall we collectively smoke?

Charlie:
Yeah. Well, I think 'when in Rome, do as the Romans do'. I think in mainland Europe smoking is still, I don't condone it, it's a bad thing, it has bad health impacts, but it is a little bit more socially acceptable. I think in the UK we've kind of removed that cool factor with smoking. Would you agree?

Harry:
It's definitely, yeah. It's definitely not considered cool to smoke here now. I don't know if it is in other countries, but yeah, it seems to be it seems to be the case the more people smoke there, you just you see a lot more people smoking, that's for sure. So that definitely makes you want to smoke. You know, that kind of observation of it. And you just think, oh, yeah, I fancy.. We, we naturally kind of gravitated towards it quite quickly and we bloody enjoyed it didn't we. We bought, we bought two big packs of, of menthol filters. Sorry. No. One pack of menthol filters and one pack of normal filters. We got rolling tobacco, papers that came with it and a lighter. We did that like five minutes after Charlie suggested it. We took a beeline to the nearest newsagents or tobacco shop and we got our stuff. We had our first cigarette looking up at the cathedral, the big wet (Cathedral), and and Charlie said, I feel really relaxed but depressed. And I was like, Yeah, me too. Yeah. Smoking's not very nice, is it? I didn't enjoy that first cigarette because I think I didn't we didn't have a drink in our hand. And also we, I didn't have a menthol filter as well. I definitely prefer it with a kind of minty taste.

Charlie:
Yeah. Menthol all the way. Yeah. It has a strong effect on people who don't smoke. Like the tobacco really does hit home and definitely felt different after that first cigarette and the rest, like the whole way through the week. It was a different feeling. After every cigarette, it was like, "Whoa, that hit me".

Harry:
It does it definitely impacts you. The nicotine.

Charlie:
Yeah. That I felt like was an ingredient that suggested that we were on a stag. But other than that, I'm not sure there was much more to it. So we did the caves and then where did we go next?

Harry:
So we drove to Cadiz or Cadiz, as we say in England. We drove there, but on the way we took a few stops, didn't we? We took a few [yes] a few stops. We actually stopped in two places. Two of the Pueblos Blancos the white villages in the south, in Andalusia. And yeah, they were really nice. That was they were your one of them was your suggestion, wasn't it? You just saw a castle and you thought, oh can we stop off there. [Yeah] And then we came off the motorway and checked it out.

Charlie:
Yeah, it was great. Got to the top of the castle and. And then got down the castle and off we went. That was pretty much it, wasn't it just.

Harry:
Pretty much. Yeah. We had a little exploration and we spoke to some people. We had a nice chat there.

Charlie:
That's true.

Charlie:
You learnt the phrase.

Harry:
..that may not be a genuine phrase.

Charlie:
Yeah that's true. Yeah. We said "do you have the phrase cheap as chips" because the ticket to the castle was very cheap and we kind of said that in Spanish. And then they offered this phrase which was..

Harry:
"mas barato que tomate con sal".. no what was it? Was it tomate con sal?

Harry:
Yeah, I think it was that. Yeah. Cheaper than tomato with salt.

Charlie:
Yeah.

Harry:
To which Charlie said, "But where's the bread?" Wouldn't be a great aperitivo.

Charlie:
No. Wonder if many Spaniards react positively to hearing that on this show, because the next person we said that phrase to, she was like, "What are you on about? I don't know that phrase."

Harry:
I think it sounds like a genuine phrase, but he seemed very keen to to teach us it. [He did] But yeah, I just looked it up and I can't find anything about that. She looked at us. She gave us a very puzzled look and she was like, No.

Charlie:
So maybe he was having us on.

Harry:
Yeah, he might have been having us on. Yeah, that's a bloody good phrase. Yeah, I think he might have been having us on. And then we stopped at another.

Charlie:
You nailed it here. So we had lunch here and it was the most picturesque, most Spanish vibes you could possibly imagine. It was surrounded by a lake. We went over this bridge, I think it was a dam. And then we climbed up a little bit and then stopped off at this village. Beautiful scenery and backdrop. And there was this tiny little cafe or restaurant luncheon kind of spot. And then there was some flamenco as soon as we arrived. And who was doing the flamenco?

Harry:
Some men were sauced up. They were having quite a lot of cans or bottles of beer on their table. And they I don't think they were hired to be there. They just had turned up with their guitar and there they were doing their all their palmas. They were doing their lovely Spanish clapping and they were singing and playing flamenco songs. And it was so nice, wasn't it? We just sat there listening to the music and playing. No, we didn't play cards. I think we had a wine.

Charlie:
And we had very nice tapas. We had quail eggs on an eggplant or what we say aubergine fried aubergine with tomato relish. Kind of.

Harry:
Yeah, it was lovely. It was like thinly sliced fried aubergine on top of which they'd put a little bit of this really nice salsa, kind of a nice tomato sauce of some sort. And then on top of that, a little quail's egg. And it was just. It was a little mouthful, wasn't it? It was like bite-sized little piece of deliciousness. [Yeah. Really good] It was gorgeous.

Charlie:
Yeah, really nice. And then, yeah, the flamenco. That was so authentic. They definitely weren't paid to be there. They were just having fun. They were just going to their favourite place and having a little sing-song.

Harry:
It was great. It was great. Yeah it was very nice.

Charlie:
And there was a little puppy, wasn't there, in a box next to them. And then they gave it to me to pet and hold. It was.

Charlie:
Great. Yeah. STAG STAG STAG STAG STAG.

Harry:
Very, very staggie, yeah. Then we got back on the road and went to Cadiz.

Speaker3:
Cadiz.

Charlie:
We have come to the end of part two now. So again, feel free to pause the episode to take a break from your listening practice and come back to the last part when you're ready. All right. So moving on to part three now. Enjoy. And am I saying it still wrong? Cadiz.

Harry:
Cadiz. No, that's good. I was just double checking that I was saying it right. Cadiz. Yeah.

Charlie:
It feels weird to stress the first syllable for me whenever we have to do that.

Harry:
Yeah. Yeah. Like it's like 'Anus'. Haha.

Charlie:
I'm sure Cadiz would be proud to be thought of as an anus, compared with an anus.

Harry:
You could. You could say it's the anus of Spain, isn't it? It's right at the extremity.

Charlie:
It is.

Harry:
It is. Yeah. But it's not, it's not the arse we say the arse end of whatever don't we. The. Oh Scotland. No. What's the arse end of um of the UK. Would you say?

Charlie:
A nasty place isn't it? We don't say the geographical location. [Yeah we say it with shitholes]. It's not like, like the tail.

Harry:
Does it not indicate its geographical situation, does it not?

Charlie:
I'm not sure.

Charlie:
I'll google it.

Harry:
Yeah. The worst or inferior parts, but then inferior could mean lower as well. Maybe. Yeah. Maybe just the worst.

Charlie:
Can be a time frame, can't it? Like the end of the evening or the end of the year? I think.

Harry:
Yeah, I just found another expression. Arse End Charlie.

Charlie:
Yeah, I just saw that on Wikipedia.

Charlie:
Did you put that in?

Harry:
It's... It's UK military slang and it. Well, what does it mean? Tall in Charlie. It's a synonym of tall in Charlie, which is the last aircraft in a formation. The rear gunner in a bomber. 'Arse-end Charlie'. I love that. The man guarding the rear of a patrol. Wow. Would you So you would. If you were in a military brigade, you would be Arse-end Charlie. Probably. You'd be the one at the back. I think I would want to be Arse-end Charlie. To be fair.

Charlie:
Yeah.

Harry:
Or no. Probably second from last.

Charlie:
What would that be?

Harry:
Just, second from last Harry.

Charlie:
Genitalia-end Harry. [second from the arse] Yeah. Penis-end Harry.

Harry:
Yeah. Gooch.

Charlie:
I've got some examples of arse-end thanks to GPT. We got the arse end of the deal. That's a good one. When we agreed to split the profits equally despite doing most of the work. Yeah, that's a good example. I live at the arse end of town where the public transport is practically non-existent. Good. And last one. My flat is at the end of the building next to the noisy elevator or lift, as Brits would say. Well, it didn't feel like the arse end of Spain. Cadiz. It was. [No, no, it was lovely] It was beautiful. It's a beach town. Beach city, really. A city on the coast. Beautiful cathedral and loads of plazas.

Harry:
Lovely plazas. Yeah. What lovely squares. Yes, very, very nice. But so that's where the stag do was, was ending. So we had when we got there we, we, we got dressed up didn't we? And we went out, we, we had a shave.

Speaker3:
We had a shave.

Harry:
Shave, shit shit, shower, shave.

Charlie:
Say that again.

Harry:
But I don't think we did. We didn't do... Shit. Shower. Shave - the three S's.

Charlie:
The three ways in which men, real men like stags like us, get ready for an evening, a shit, a shower and a shave and let's go!

Harry:
I don't think either of us showered. I think we had, what we call 'a man wash', didn't we? We had a kind of little wash of our armpits and other areas.

Charlie:
You did mine. I did yours.

Harry:
Exactly. And had a little shave and we went out. And we were thinking, "yeah, this is probably going to be our big night, right?" It felt like the time had arrived for us to to really let loose and stay out past 11:00.

Charlie:
And that we did, sir. We got home at 5 a.m..

Harry:
Unbelievable. Way too late. Way too late. We should have gone back at 2a.m.

Charlie:
Yeah, we should have. Yeah, we found a little random little bar that we thought, "Let's just have a little look." And then there was a good DJ and a good atmosphere for dancing. Oh, no. You didn't like him? Oh, no. He hated you, didn't he?

Harry:
Yeah. I kept putting my my hand, like, leaning on his DJ booth.

Charlie:
Yeah, quite. I mean, I'd say fair enough.

Harry:
Fair enough. Yeah, sort of. Yeah.

Charlie:
He was needlessly aggressive, but if you kept doing it and you're drunk and he's sober and he's trying to do his job, maybe. Fair enough.

Harry:
Yeah, fair enough.

Charlie:
Enough. And we had a lot of gin and tonic. I was downing them like a marathon runner has just finished and got their bottle of Buxton.

Harry:
You were drinking, like it was going out of fashion. You were drinking like a lunatic. I've never seen you guzzling drink so quick. You said that you can put them away. This is a good expression. You said that you can put put gin and tonics away quite well. And. Yeah. You weren't lying. You weren't lying.

Charlie:
I wasn't lying. But I did think that I had a bit more resilience to it for the next day. I was very wrong. I was really hung over from that, sick to the stomach all the way through the day. Couldn't even really get to the beach. We managed it, but I was only there for a few hours and then I was like, "Oh, this beach life ain't for me."

Harry:
But yeah, you did well to get down there. I think I went out at about half 11, to get some brekkie. I was feeling all right. I almost felt guilty for feeling all right. So I was like, I'm going to get out of here and let let Charlie just suffer on his own. And so I went out for some breakfast, went down to the beach and yeah, I was there for a for a couple of hours. And then Charlie rocked up. And it was it was good. It was good to see you out. It definitely makes you feel better, right? It's getting out, getting some fresh air [for sure]. Having a bite to eat.

Charlie:
Thinking about the night before, though. I feel like it's a rarity nowadays. Since Covid, I haven't really done much like club scene kind of dancing. I haven't done that.

Harry:
No, no, no. I don't remember the last time I went out like that.

Charlie:
It's good fun,

Harry:
Actually. Yeah, it's really fun.

Charlie:
Actually it was last night.

Harry:
No, I did like maybe a couple of months ago, but yeah, no, it was it was really good fun. Really good fun. It took a while to to get into it. Yeah, yeah. To get over The self-consciousness on the dance floor.

Charlie:
That's why I necked a few gins because it let's lets the inhibitions go for me.

Harry:
You were loving it and they were loving you. Yeah, you had good vibes. You were like, "God, this is so good? I love the people here. This is so me."

Charlie:
Oh, God.

Harry:
No, you didn't say that. Ye didn't say the last bit, but you were like, "I like the vibes, you know, it's great. Just. Just be happy and dance." Haha. It was great. It was nice. You really were bringing the vibes. It was great.

Charlie:
Oh, what am I like, eh?

Harry:
You're a good dancer, Chaz. I think. I think you're a good dancer. You're a good mover. You just get into it and you feel the music and you just just let loose. It's great.

Charlie:
I think essential for me to have social lubrication in the form of alcohol because otherwise I'm a very awkward dancer. Been to some weddings with Stacy, where I don't really know the people and I really, really struggle on the dance floor to even sort of bop along. Oh, really? Yeah. Very awkward.

Harry:
Okay.

Harry:
Oh, that's interesting. I find it if I'm with people that I know, if I know them a little bit, then it's okay. It's when I don't know people at all. I find myself quite self-conscious dancing.

Charlie:
Right.

Harry:
And I'm like, also, maybe it's the single thing as well. I'm very aware of, like, where all the pretty girls are on the dance floor. Yeah, I've got this. Yeah. I'm conscious of exactly their position and, you know, whether they've seen me or not.

Charlie:
Well, you impress them.

Harry:
And it's like "Come on. Get over yourself, Harry."

Charlie:
You impressed a bunch of very pretty girls with your bottle-opening skills, didn't you?

Harry:
Oh, my God.

Harry:
So bad. Yeah, I was ordering us our, like, probably Charlie's ninth gin and tonic. My fourth. And I was. Yeah, the, the the bottle of tonic was on the on the bar unopened. I was like, "I'm just going to open these." And there was a twist top and it was like, Oh. And I was like trying to twisting it with all my might and I could not open it. I was sweating. I was like crouching down, trying to get more grip with my t-shirt. And these two girls were watching me like, "This guy is pathetic." And I put it back on the bar. I was like, "Ah I'm going to try again." I kept trying and I was just, like, sweating even more. And then the barman came over and just kind of like, opened it, barely even trying. But to be fair, he used a bottle opener. It turned out you needed a bottle opener to open it.

Charlie:
Yeah.

Charlie:
I love and hate the invention of the twist cap because it's great to have a twist cap, but it then creates confusion with the non-twisty ones and it. Yeah, it creates scenes like this.

Harry:
Yeah, it was. It was rather embarrassing. Good night. A good end to what was a wonderful.

Charlie:
Wonderful week away. Absolutely. I was just imagining that man on the plane that we actually saw on the flight back as well, and we caught up with them. That was quite funny. But imagine him watching you open that bottle.

Harry:
Oh, my God. Yeah. He would have loved that. He would have loved that. It's mad that we bumped into them on the plane. That was crazy.

Charlie:
What are the chances?

Charlie:
But there we go. That was our stag do or my stag do that you hosted for me?

Harry:
Yeah. Your stag.

Charlie:
Thank you very much.

Harry:
Your second stag.

Charlie:
Yes, my second stag. My first stag was with the other best man. And that went that didn't go as successfully as this one because that was the one that I went I went skiing. You love that. Cheers, mate. Love that.

Harry:
No, no, no, I don't. No, of course I don't know. It's horrible. But I know I just like it because it was like. Yeah, it made mine better. Took the pressure off mine, you know, knowing that the other one was such a disaster.

Charlie:
If you didn't hear from me previously, in another episode. I went skiing with this friend, and on the first morning of the whole week ahead of me, I fell over and did my right ligament in my knee. I tore it. So yes, I had no more skiing in me and I was just sat there watching him go off and enjoy the slopes whilst I was feeling sorry for myself, thinking of another year of physio. That was a lot more successful. Congratulations for doing the best stag. You get that award for sure. A bit unfair for Matt, but there we go. But yes, very different to a usual stag do. And I think that might have painted a picture of what a typical British stag do is like for the listeners. You know, the opposites always help to compare things.

Harry:
Definitely. Yeah.

Harry:
I don't know if we painted a pretty picture of it. Sorry to interrupt you. I don't know if we painted a pretty picture of what a typical stag do is like, but it basically. Is like that.

Charlie:
Well yeah, it's not pretty. It's not a pretty scene. I'd say it's good fun if you can handle it, which occasionally we have done. But for me, I can't think. I can't imagine that I would have handled being the stag, having all of that drink thrown at me, all of that pressure. Yeah. I'd much prefer a cute little holiday with some of my best friends. Yeah. Reading poetry to each other in Spanish. Perfect.

Harry:
Yeah.

Harry:
Yeah, it was great. It was great.

Charlie:
But there we go. Thank you very much for being with me through this conversation, Harry. And thank you very much, everybody, for getting to the end of this experience. We look forward to seeing you again soon on the British English podcast. Thank you very much, Harry. Bye bye. There we go. The end of part three, meaning the end of the episode. Well done for getting through the entirety of it. Make sure you use all of the resources available to you in your membership. Thanks once again for supporting the show and I look forward to seeing you next time on the British English podcast.