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Original poster

Grockles, emmets or what?

53 replies

Devondoggydaycare · 15/05/2019 08:36

I've been muttering darkly about the grockles who think it's OK to park their Range Rover in a passing place on single track roads just because the sun has come out and they're down for the weekend. Weekend surfers in their VW sports vans are just as bad and need lessons in reversing. Non locals and tourists are grockles or emmets to us, but what do you call them if you live in the Lake District, New Forest or Norfolk?

OP posts:
HazelBite · 15/05/2019 13:17

I know this thread is lighthearted, but how would the locals in the areas survive if it wasn't for the tourists?

Thare is much surliness by locals towards visitors, especially in the West Country, it is very off putting.

( PS I don't drive a 4x4)

Eminybob · 15/05/2019 13:19

I’m from Jersey originally and they were always grockles there, and the ones on the road known as horror cars, as the hire cars were identified by a big red H on the number plate.

DrCoconut · 15/05/2019 13:25

HazelBite, exactly. I saw a Facebook post from someone living and working in a very popular holiday area about bloody tourists. They'll be the people that enable you to live in one of the most scenic parts of the country all year then? I know it's supposed to be light hearted but there is a point. Move to an undesirable location if tourists are a problem Grin

PhannyMcNee · 15/05/2019 13:29

To be fair to some emmets though, there are a reasonable number of locals who drive the back lanes who shouldn’t - the breaking at nothing, middle of the road can’t reverse types.

I regularly get stuck behind one on my way to work and know where they work as they turn off before me so definitely local Grin

My bugbear is the holidayers leaving the beach at 5 so adding to the traffic when I’m trying to get home...

CrepuscularCritter · 15/05/2019 13:31

Also from Devon, so definitely grockles. And that roof box on the car? That's the grockle shell.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 15/05/2019 13:33

@BetrandRussell - I love your ‘mouse in frock shops’ term - I won’t be able to think of them as anything else, now!

Thecowinthemeadowgoesmoo · 15/05/2019 13:34

I think it's because common sense goes out of the window for some people when they're on holiday! For example, walking on roads rather than pavements through the middle of the town Hmm it's as though they think they can't get hit by a car because they have a protective holiday force field around them.

Thecowinthemeadowgoesmoo · 15/05/2019 13:34

Oh and it's Grockles here, previously Dorset but now in Devon.

Prawnofthepatriarchy · 15/05/2019 13:35

In my teens I used to help out at a Cornish pony trekking stable during the school holidays. They got free help, I got free rides. They used to call me the demi-semi-emmet.

hippermiddleton · 15/05/2019 13:38

In Herefordshire, anyone who hasn't lived in the county for 150 years is described as coming 'from off'.

ProfessorofPerspective · 15/05/2019 13:39

Grockles in Dorset. And the Brummies can't be all in Weston Super Mare, they love Weymouth too!

SuburbanCrofter · 15/05/2019 14:04

And that roof box on the car? That's the grockle shell. Love it Grin

I'm sorry but that whole 'we are boosting your economy, you should be nice to us' attitude really annoys me. Like we are supposed to be forelock-tuggingly grateful.

I grew up in a tourist area not because we benefitted from the income, but because my family had lived there for generations, and it had recently become a popular destination. Neither my family, nor many people I knew, derived an income from it. Are we not allowed to complain (even jokingly) about the effect tourism has?

Original poster
Devondoggydaycare · 15/05/2019 14:19

I do like a nice story about a lorry stuck in St Ives on the evening news, preferably in an impasse with one of those huge Porsche Cayenne things. Meanwhile, my Dad has been known to give way in the middle of a roundabout in case the grockles don't stop at the stop line, so phannymcne has a point.

OP posts:
BobbinThreadbare123 · 15/05/2019 15:27

Swivelheads. Cos they're always swivelling their heads about

BobbinThreadbare123 · 15/05/2019 15:28

Oh I'm in the Lakes

LucheroTena · 15/05/2019 15:40

This kind of talk makes me glad to live in urban, anonymous live and let live London.

Original poster
Devondoggydaycare · 15/05/2019 15:58

I love it Bobbin

OP posts:
maggienolia · 15/05/2019 17:02

It's not just a coastal thing either. The ones in Cambridge block the whole roads and stop without warning to take a selfie. Leading to a concertina effect as everyone piles up the back of them.
I'm trying to think of a term for them....college creepers?

horizontalis · 15/05/2019 17:06

Here in sunny Bedfordshire we call them 'arseholes'.

Original poster
Devondoggydaycare · 15/05/2019 17:25

horizontalis Grin

You're being very polite maggienolia I'm sure they get called a few other words!

OP posts:
wherehavealltheflowersgone · 15/05/2019 17:37

me too @IheartNiles In London we have more tourists than the rest of the country put together. Guess what we call them? Tourists. We live and let live and let them get on with it - and I love seeing my city through their eyes.

The attitudes on this thread is partly why we no longer go to certain parts of the UK on holiday.

bigbluebus · 15/05/2019 17:39

I grew up on the North Wales coast and I call them grockles. I live inland now so don't see as many tourists but quite frankly they couldn't drive any worse than the ageing locals!

horizontalis · 15/05/2019 17:42

Us locals get called 'brussel-pickers' Grin

MitziK · 15/05/2019 17:45

Grockles.

Or when they let their mutts off the lead around livestock and insist they are 'just playing' or they have the right to do whatever they want with their undersocialised, high prey drive, chronically understimulated, borderline psychotic herding breeds - fucking cunts.

themueslicamel · 15/05/2019 23:24

In London we have more tourists than the rest of the country put together. Guess what we call them? Tourists. We live and let live and let them get on with it - and I love seeing my city through their eyes.

I agree with this as long as they don't stand on the left on the station escalators, if the do they're "fucking" tourists Grin