Fun at the Beach

Rob Bell:

Jono's Sketchplanations book, Big Ideas, Little Pictures, came out last week for those in the US and Canada.

And hopefully some of you have got your copies now.

We'd love to know your thoughts.

And for many countries outside North America, you can still pre-order your copies for when it becomes available at the end of May.

For more details on where it's available and to place your order, head to sketchplanations.com forward slash book.

Jono Hey:
I feel like you can have lots of different emotions of the beach.

Like you can go get bashed by the waves, and that's really exciting.

But also you can have that like amazing sort of sense of perspective about how much bigger the ocean is.

And then at the same time, you can be like really creative, and then you can have like incredible calm.

You can just sort of contemplate and take it easy and just look.

Tom Pellereau:
My sister, she actually found a message in a bottle, and it was a really beaten up bottle.

It had clearly been out in the sea for years, and it turned out it had come from America.

Rob Bell:
I was on the beach filming up near Middlesbrough, and this guy discovered something buried in the sand, this metal kind of cylinder, very rusted away.

And he was absolutely convinced it was a bomb.

He was like, I've found a bomb.

Hello, and welcome to Sketchplanations, The Podcast.

Another day, another dollop of wisdom.

Listening to this podcast may well add another string to your bow.

And as we embark on yet another day in paradise, we don't want you to think of this as just another brick in the wall, but more along the lines of the idea that one person's trash is another person's treasure.

And after this intro especially, if you're thinking, hmm, perhaps another time, then hold it right there.

Don't give that another thought.

And let me introduce my brothers from another mother's, the father of Sketchplanations, Jono Hey, and the long lost uncle of innovation, Tom Pellereau.

Good evening, chaps.

Tom Pellereau:
Good evening, Rob.

That was a brilliant introduction.

Rob Bell:
How are you?

Tom Pellereau:
It did sound like someone was being strangled in the background.

Whose house was that?

Jono Hey:
Some kids being strangled upstairs, strangling each other.

I had to mute.

Rob Bell:
Hence the mute came on, bang.

Jono Hey:
I was like, I think that's my kids strangling each other.

Rob Bell:
We've dealt with worse, that's for sure.

Have you guys heard of the phrase, egg corn?

And I asked this, cause when I was thinking of all those idioms that contained the word another, I was reminded of the fact that I used to think that a phrase that's sometimes used to tell somebody off was, so I need the whole phrase here.

And if you think you're going to do that again, then you've got another thing coming.

And I'd say you've got another thing coming.

Whereas the phrase is, you've got another think coming, which makes sense when you break it down.

You know, if you think you're going to get away with that again, then think again, basically.

You have another thought, you've got another thing coming.

Because it makes it, but that makes much more sense, doesn't it?

Otherwise you've got another thing coming.

What does that mean?

If you think you're going to do this again, then you've got another thing coming.

Think again.

Jono Hey:
I did not realize that.

Rob Bell:
And those things are called egg corns, apparently after the fact that apparently at some point, somebody thought acorns, you know, things that squirrels eat.

Yes.

They heard it as egg corns, egg corns.

I mean, I first heard about egg corns on the Adam and Joe podcast, but so at the risk of just repeating what other podcasts have done before.

I mean, do you know or have you consistently got things wrong in the past like that?

Phrases or idioms or something?

Jono Hey:
Winnie the Pooh and Piglet called them hay corns.

Rob Bell:
Hay corns.

Jono Hey:
Which is nice.

It's quite reasonable, isn't it?

Hay corn?

Tom Pellereau:
So I think we've talked about this before where you can't remember an embarrassing story about yourself, but you can remember an embarrassing story about another, especially a last one.

Rob Bell:
I think I'm better.

Tom Pellereau:
As you know, my gorgeous wife is called Sarah.

And when we first met, I remember this, this song came on the, on the radio.

K, Sarah, Sarah, whatever will be, will be.

And she's like, oh, I love that song.

I'm like, why?

Well, you know, it's about Sarah.

K, Sarah.

And I was like, oh, that is so gorgeous.

And I've remembered that for 12, 15 years, ever since that happened.

It's a brilliant story.

Rob Bell:
I love it.

That's brilliant.

I used to work with somebody who'd say, look, we need to be more Pacific about this.

And I thought she was having a laugh at first, but she'd obviously learnt it or misheard it as Pacific at some point.

And that was that.

Happens to us all.

Yeah.

Jono Hey:
I was thinking, you know, the Michael Jackson song, Another Part of Me.

Yeah, right.

Rob Bell:
Just another part of me.

Jono Hey:
I always thought he was saying, it's just another pot of Maine.

Rob Bell:
It's just another pot of Maine.

Jono Hey:
And I didn't know what that meant, but I thought that's what he was saying.

Rob Bell:
Have you not got a pot of Maine in the cupboard?

I've got both.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

Rob Bell:
Just another one.

Jono Hey:
So if I was singing along, that's why I would sing.

I didn't know why.

I was like, why is that so weird that he writes a song about that?

That's good.

Dad, why is a pot of Maine, anyway?

Rob Bell:
We're on this territory here.

Peter Kay does a lot of egg corns of what other people hear in songs as well.

Jono Hey:
There was a really nice bit about the people who wrote the music for the Jungle Book, the Disney cartoon.

And they were talking about some of the sessions they had with Walt Disney.

And they talked about how when it came to a part where they were, something would hover, Walt Disney would always say, Hoover.

And they were like, I'm pretty sure it's hover.

But nobody really felt the courage of telling Walt Disney that he was getting it wrong.

What is he talking about?

Rob Bell:
It's hover.

We need this character to be hoovering right here.

As to some of the classics, oh, it's a doggy dog world out there.

A doggy dog world.

You've turned me into some kind of escape goat, escape goat.

I was on, I was on Tender Hooks.

Tom Pellereau:
That one I've been thinking is wrong the whole time.

What is it actually?

It's on Tender Hooks, not Tender Hooks.

Rob Bell:
I looked this up because I knew it was Tender Hooks, but I didn't, and it means to be like in a state of nervous anxiety for something, right?

Or nervous apprehension, I should probably say.

And I looked this up because I didn't know where it came from.

Tender Hooks used to be used in the process of weaving woollen fabric, right?

And they were kind of bent nails that you'd bang into the wall in a line, and then you'd hang your fabric off of it.

So the fabric was being suspended, i.e.

it was in suspense.

That's why it's on Tender Hooks.

If you're on Tender Hooks, you're in suspense of something.

Tom Pellereau:
Sounds pretty tenuous.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, it does a little bit.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

Rob Bell:
It does a little bit.

Jono Hey:
When I was like, you can't tell when people say it, which I think is why it's always a bit unclear, which is, bear with me.

And so when some people write, bear with me, very often it's B-A-R-E, which basically means get naked with me.

But the phrase is actually bear, as in like, let's bear it, you know.

Can you bear it while I do this?

You're like, can you wait, essentially.

But people always very often write, bear with me.

Just, oh, could bear with you, but I'm not sure it's appropriate.

Rob Bell:
The third interpretation could be-

With a bear.

Yeah, I've got my pet bear, yeah.

Bear with me.

Bear with me.

Shall we bring him along?

As one thing leads to another, we won't get another bite of the cherry for this week's Sketch.

And nobody's here for just another Sketchplanation notch on The Bedpost.

So let's get right into it.

Let's podcast.

This week, we're talking Beaches.

Now, we're gonna headline with Jono's sketch that's entitled Beaches, Amazing for Play.

But really, I think this is probably an homage or a tribute episode to our love of beaches and everything you can do, see, hear and learn there.

Sand, sea, sometimes sun, as Jono suggests, they're always fun.

The artwork for this episode that's up on your screen now is that headline sketch, Beaches, Amazing for Play.

And I'll include links to all the sketches that we reference in the podcast description down below.

Alternatively, you'll be able to find all of them at sketchplanations.com.

And if our conversation reminds you of special times you've had at the beach or things you've seen or learned at the beach, then do drop us a line.

Tom Pellereau:
Send your emails to hello at sketchplanations.com, but preferably we'd like a message in a bottle for this episode.

Rob Bell:
Good, Tommy, excellent, thank you.

And we'll be going through your emails from last week at the very end of this episode.

Right then.

I mean, as friends who've known each other for over 20 years, it's probably no surprise that we've all shared quite a bit of time together on various beaches.

But Jono, firstly, why did you want to put this out as a sketch?

Jono Hey:
Yeah, I wanted to put this out as a sketch because having spent a lot of time at beaches and lucky enough to have this place where we head down to in Devon, which is on the coast in the UK quite often, it just strikes me every time just how remarkable they are that if you were to try and design like the perfect play environment or a toy or something, you just never get close to what a beach is.

And actually there was one thing specifically which made me like want to do this sketch and I started listing all the reasons why I think beaches are amazing for play.

And actually if you look at the sketch, which is basically somebody doing a sandcastle and a little kid there and there's some rocks and the sea behind, I couldn't even fit all of the, not even nearly any of the, I started labeling the individual aspects and then one of them is like I just had to just keep writing words because there's so many good things.

And the main bit, which I think still marvels when I think about it is having a play space that gets tidied up by itself.

You can go to a beach and people do every day and you make a right mess of it.

And every morning you come back and it's like pristine and perfect and lovely again.

And I just think like anything we could make if it could do that would be incredible.

But there are so many other things about a beach, which I always think is fun to talk about.

Rob Bell:
You know the Etch A Sketch where you use the two twiddly knobs left and right and up and down.

You sketch it and then you shake it all and it's all disappears.

That's like the beach after every tide, isn't it?

Jono Hey:
It is.

It's quite fun, I suppose, actually shaking it rather than letting the tide do it.

Rob Bell:
Maybe the inspiration for the Etch A Sketch was a beach.

Jono Hey:
But imagine if you could get all your toys out on the on the on the rug or the floor, assuming you're a parent, the kids toys, and then just walk off and then the next day it's just magically tidied up.

Rob Bell:
They're all they're all up against the window on one side of the room.

Jono Hey:
This is like a line of them spreading across.

Yeah.

Rob Bell:
Apart from apart from that one plastic toy that floats really well.

I don't know where that's gone that one.

Jono Hey:
Down the hall somewhere.

Yeah, absolutely.

Rob Bell:
And I love the inspiration for you is being there with your family and that refresh every single day.

We probably tend to think of beaches mostly in the summer, right?

When they're more populated, but the beaches are there 365 days a year.

And I've really enjoyed being on beaches in the winter when it's some pretty dramatic weather going on.

I think it's a great place to be.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

Yeah.

I was thinking that as well.

Like, you know, I definitely made a summer scene there where it's like warm enough and you can do sandcastles and be in your trunks or whatever.

But actually some of my best memories of beaches are in the winter or even like right after a storm or something like that, where you go to the beach and you just get blown around and there's giant waves and, you know, battered.

Yeah, there's something, I don't know what it is, some quite cathartic about being battered by the elements.

It's absolutely great.

I was thinking that one of the things it does is, is it makes it magical to like, leave it as well.

You know, it has that feeling of like if you've been in countries where it's quite hard to get like a hot shower and then you come back to a hot shower, the hot shower just feels amazing.

If you go get battered at the beach by the wind and the spray, and then you come back into any warm room, you're like, this is amazing.

It transforms your experience there as well.

Yeah.

So any season is great.

Rob Bell:
Tell me what's your kind of take on beaches?

What's your relationship with beaches?

Tom Pellereau:
Like the two of you, I love beaches and like Jono, I've been so lucky to be going down to Cornwall for most of my life and spending a huge amount of time on beaches.

As you know, I'm a big fan of toys and kit.

So for me, going to the beach usually means getting the VW camper van as close as possible to the beach so we can get the two SUPs out, the Cricket, the Speedmington, the 50 different size balls of different things to play with.

Even to the bounce net, love taking that down because you can have the most incredible bounce back games.

And now I've got an eight year old and a 10 year old as well.

They're so fun to play with on the beach.

But as Jono said, there's something for everyone.

It self cleans, not only like smooths it all back out, but like all the yuckiness sort of goes as well, doesn't it?

And it's a fresh start.

Maybe that's a part of it.

It's a fresh start.

You can draw that line for the first time, build that castle for the first time seemingly, but it was probably built yesterday.

Jono Hey:
There's something lovely about turning up in the morning and being the first at the beach.

Yeah.

And having as the sand has just been revealed freshly for you.

Nobody's touched it today.

And you can be like, I can, you can write your name in it or whatever you can do, whatever and mark it however you want.

And you just know it's going to be covered up later and put back, put back to you.

But yeah, that's like a beautiful feeling, isn't it?

It's like a blank canvas.

What promise this beach has.

Tom Pellereau:
And having said, I always turn up with loads and loads of kit.

The times that we don't actually you don't need anything when you turn up at a beach either because there's stones of different sizes.

There's there's rivers that you can dam and play with.

There's rock pools.

There's like what has I really learned from being a parent is how kids are just entertained because there's so much to life on the ground and around to entertain you.

And I think we forget that as we become adults that we lose kind of interest in those fascinating bugs that you might find underneath a rock or the seaweed that you can flick at your brother or sister or, you know, all that kind of stuff, which we potentially stop doing.

Rob Bell:
I don't know.

Tom Pellereau:
Depends who we're with possibly.

Rob Bell:
The seaweeds are good observation.

I like that.

And I'm a bit of a scaredy cat when it comes to stuff in the sea.

And I can get quite freaked out by seaweed if I feel it on my feet and stuff in the water.

But once it's on the beach, I'm fine with that, I'll pick it up and chuck it about.

No worries.

Jono Hey:
Chuck it at your mates.

Yeah, I think I was thinking if you have like a beach with rock pools and things, for example, and you can go check out the rock pools, you have that magic, like intrigue of being like a scientist, right?

You're looking for, I think actually, like genuinely, it's something that several people, including my wife, probably like one of the things that makes them want to be a biologist.

I almost never see her happier than when she's like looking around rock pools and trying to find all this stuff, and you get that sort of intrigue that a scientist gets, or you like you've gone to finding a crab.

I have a really good friend who did biology at university, and if I just picture him, the image I have is like one foot in a rock pool, like checking under a rock, and picking out a crab and like, like, that's amazing.

And what a cool experience that is for a kid as well, isn't it?

Like you can't do that at the park, like you just pull out a mole or something, or, you know, here's a woodpecker, you know, it just doesn't happen.

But beach has these incredible things, and you know, a rock pool is like this contained thing that you can look in at your leisure, and there might be stuff in it.

So that's quite exciting too, yeah.

Rob Bell:
There are some great things to be found, like creatures wise, there are brilliant things to be found, right?

Occasionally, there's stuff that's washed up and it's on the beach.

Tom Pellereau:
I've some, get some.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, I'm thinking of more creatures though, probably, and probably dead.

Like the jelly, I don't know actually, like the jellyfish.

Tom Pellereau:
Dead jellyfish always worth a stab.

Rob Bell:
Just get them away.

Tom Pellereau:
Or just throw some sand at them for some reason is always a need too.

Rob Bell:
Oh, I really dislike, I really, really dislike them.

I would just keep my distance.

This might link into another sketch.

Have you done a sketch about jellies, jellyfish, Jono?

Jono Hey:
Not exactly.

But I do have one about, well, yeah, there's one called Sea Jelly Seastar.

Rob Bell:
That's it.

That's it.

So everyone calls them jellyfish, but actually they're called sea jellies.

Jono Hey:
Well, yeah, well, because they're not fish and starfish aren't fish either.

So technically you should call them sea jellies and sea stars.

Rob Bell:
I hate them.

Jono Hey:
But nobody does.

Rob Bell:
Tiny crabs, I don't mind running around and then they pop down into the sand.

They'll go between little holes and scurrying around.

They're quite fun.

You know, the little, the little like squiggly, squiggly sand piles you see sometimes.

What they call casts, worm casts, right?

You see them in mud as well, like in the park and stuff, but on the beach, you see them a lot left by lugworms, but they actually look like they're creatures themselves.

I've always thought.

Jono Hey:
They have all these little creatures sitting around the top.

Yeah, the traces of creatures, which is kind of fascinating too, isn't it?

Rob Bell:
It is.

The trace and the presence of all this marine, like, which, no, I guess you wouldn't call lugworms marine life, would you, because they are, they live in the sand.

Jono Hey:
In a marine kind of environment.

That's a good question.

One of the most memorable times I remember having at the beach was, it was after a big storm and for some reason, there was like a whole load of Portuguese man of war jellyfish Where?

Rob Bell:
Where was this?

Jono Hey:
Jelly jellies.

This was in Devon.

And which are quite, they have quite serious stings and but there was a huge numbers of them that all got washed up in this in this storm.

And so you we came to the beach that morning.

And everywhere you looked like, you know, separated by a foot or two maximum was a Portuguese man of war, see jelly, just right there and they're incredible like purple, purpley blue color, not very big, but that their tentacles can go a really long time back to see the face you're making Rob.

But for me, I remember it was fascinating.

I was like, Wow, I've never seen these things so close.

And they were everywhere.

It was incredible.

Rob Bell:
What were they?

Would they die just left up on the on the beach?

Do you know?

Jono Hey:
They will die.

So we were there in the morning.

And then they still all had a lot of color and stuff.

But if you were there in the afternoon, they sort of dried out a bit.

I thought it was really amazing.

Rob Bell:
You have given me nightmares tonight.

Tom Pellereau:
And I presume the following day, they were all just washed away.

Jono Hey:
They probably were.

And they probably cleaned up by the beach.

There was one thing I was going to think keeps people going back to the beach also is this is the like, both the variation, not only as you say, it's different in winter to summer, but it's different tomorrow from today.

And one day, I turn up and I get Portuguese man of war.

Another time I turn up and you get incredible shell.

And you have that.

I know humans are people who are always bewitched by intermittent rewards, I always think.

And so like that time where, so you go into something, and sometimes you get something amazing.

Yeah.

But not all the time.

And just to get, you know, just occasionally, but it might be this time.

And that's just so captivating, like this time might be the time where I kick my foot and find like, you know, a World War II artifact on the beach, or like, oh, I found that incredible crab, or I found that incredible sea jelly, because you've done it, because it's happened.

Those things sort of things have happened once or twice when you've gone to the beach.

So you're like, oh, maybe this time, there's going to be something incredible.

Tom Pellereau:
Or a message in a bottle to hello at sketchplanations.com.

We did genuinely find a message about in Portugal one year, my sister, a couple years younger, she actually found a message in a bottle, and it was a really beaten up bottle.

It had clearly been out in the sea for a year, and it turned out it had come from America.

Rob Bell:
What did the message say?

Was it, could you read it?

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah, you could read it, and I think it had a postal address or a phone number, and somehow my sister or my dad got in touch, and they found out that it had been put in the sea by some kid nine months earlier, and it got all the way around to Portugal.

But as you say, Jono, those are the kind of rewards that, and also on the beach, you tend to get something cool almost every time.

Rob Bell:
Speaking of World War II artifacts, I was on the beach this summer with work, students are filming up near Middlesbrough, up in the northeast of England, and they've got beautiful beaches up there.

And we were filming some stuff early morning on the beaches, loads of dog walkers out.

And this guy was quite, he seemed quite agitated.

I think he'd been out surfing or swimming, he came back to his stuff and he seemed quite agitated.

It turned out he discovered something buried in the sand, this metal kind of cylinder, very rusted away, kind of rounded edges.

And he was absolutely convinced it was a bomb.

He was like, I've found a bomb buried in the sand that's kind of the seas revealed it, half buried.

Tom Pellereau:
Did he still have his foot on it?

And he was like, I don't know what to do.

Rob Bell:
I say agitated, he was agitated, but quite pleasantly excited to buy this as well.

So I think he...

He rang the police and the police came down and they had a look and then a load of more police guys came and they might've been bombed disposal.

They came in their trucks and their vans and they had their overalls and stuff on.

It turns out, cause they dug it up.

It was, it looked like an oil filter from like a diesel engine from a boat, basically.

Yeah, it was interesting.

And as you say, who knows what you're gonna find on the beach?

It's great.

Jono Hey:
It's brilliant.

I think that finding is just sort of so naturally fun for all of us.

I was thinking, you know, like kids love it, but like a beach is really like egalitarian.

Like everybody enjoys a beach, like male, female, young, old.

There's just things for everybody on a beach.

Rob Bell:
That's a nice observation, Jono.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, I think, you know, if you want to leg it around and throw balls and kick football as you can, but if you want to just take your time and run your feet through the sand and look for shells, you can do that too.

Rob Bell:
Absolutely.

Jono Hey:
And if you want to get in your wetsuit and go surfing, you can do that.

Or if you just want to jump the little waves at the front, you can do that.

It's a lovely thing for like everybody, like all the family can enjoy their time at a beach.

Tom Pellereau:
For some reason, I also find that you can make up rules like the rules don't apply on beaches in terms of like, obviously love playing sports.

Rob Bell:
Just getting naked.

Tom Pellereau:
But sorry, I meant in terms of like, if you go to a tennis center, you have to play tennis with the rules of the game, as in there's a court, and there's the thing.

And if you go to a volleyball, and if you go to a golf club, and if you go to places like, you have to follow the rules so to speak.

But if you start playing a ball game on the beach, you can play any kind of rule, like cricket.

The rules, you have any length of wicket, any sort of rule for who's in next, who's out.

Rob Bell:
Very malleable rules.

Tom Pellereau:
And tennis, and you can just sort of change them as you go along.

And it's sort of really freeing to kind of just make up any kind of game that you want.

Jono Hey:
I remember playing bull, right?

Or the trunk or whatever.

And you can play that.

A lot of people play that at the beach, because it's obviously, but it makes sense.

And we've played it a lot just generally.

But one of my favourite memories ever was playing bull.

And then we just kept on getting closer to like the rocks and there were divots in the sand and everything.

We just carried on playing and you're like, and then now you can play bull, you throw it, and it's landed in like this little divot in a rock, which is raised up and see how close you can get.

That's brilliant.

And as you say, like everywhere else you play, you just play to the rules, stand behind the line.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah, like cross country bull.

Rob Bell:
So the bull I'm thinking about when you go to the beach is the pack that comes like in this, almost this plastic net, this plastic cage that opens up and they're coloured plastic balls, right?

Is that the last one we're all thinking of, right?

Tom Pellereau:
Every one of a certain age, I think had one of those kits.

Rob Bell:
Exactly.

Tom Pellereau:
And still probably does.

Rob Bell:
And so to, off the back of Jono's, and I don't know if this is what you're thinking about, Jono, but we're getting closer to the rocks once, to the point where it actually started hitting the rocks as like almost a backboard.

And we discovered these things are actually quite bouncy.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

Rob Bell:
And then we started playing, well, you have to go off the rocks to your point, Tommy, where you can just change the rules.

You have to go off the rocks.

And then it got a bit out of hand and it turns out that they're not quite as, they're not built for smashing into rocks and bouncing, but they did bounce for a good half hour or so, but then they broke.

Tom Pellereau:
They got a lot of water inside them, don't they, I think?

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Tom Pellereau:
They got links.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, that was a shame.

That was a shame.

It's almost like we took, it's almost like, what were you doing?

Tom Pellereau:
Took it too far.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, it's like last week, where-

Tom Pellereau:
Oh yeah, Peter's principle.

Rob Bell:
The generalised Peter principle.

We generally, would generally Peter principle the heck out of those coloured potongles.

Jono Hey:
Anything that works will gradually be used until fails.

Rob Bell:
Until the incompetent person who's hands it in fails, yeah.

Tom Pellereau:
There's a lot of that, because you see a lot of boats massively overloaded or a lot of spades being used for totally unsuitable things.

Rob Bell:
At the beach, yeah.

Tom Pellereau:
There's a game on the beach, right?

Rob Bell:
In your sketch, Jono, there's a beautiful sandcastle being built.

Is that something we as a podcast trio enjoy doing at the beach?

I do, I love it.

Jono Hey:
In my picture, I've got like, there's a child and like a parent, and it's the parent building the sandcastle.

Because I think that's just so classic.

It's like, okay, the kids like building sandcastles.

Right, this is gonna be the biggest sandcastle ever.

And one of our friends, I just envisaged with like the strongest spade, and you know, he's dug 10 metres of sand.

Rob Bell:
And the deepest tunnel.

Tom Pellereau:
I've got a little tip on this.

Metal detector spades are the best for the beach.

So metal detector, they're about sort of two or three foot long metal ends.

And they're also designed to not wear in the water, the salt water.

And boy, when you've got a couple of those, you can really create monsters compared to the plastic spades.

Rob Bell:
With some of the most disappointing beaches I've been on are probably beaches that within your holiday brochure are some of the best beaches.

Because the sand's just not right for making sandcastles.

It's too fine, it's too dry.

It just kind of falls through your hands.

What you want is a bit sticky, a bit wet, you want the right grain size, which I think in the UK on the whole, we have, we do quite well with on our beaches.

The right sand for making sandcastles.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, it's interesting.

When I did this, like a lot of the aspects of a beach, which I think will strike me as amazing for play, come from like UK beaches.

And I can totally recognise to some people like UK and beaches just feel like they don't go together, right?

And I had a long discussion with a friend of mine, who was Greek, and so he lived in Athens.

So all he knew was Greek beaches.

And so it was obviously adamant that Greek beaches were, you know, far superior in every way to UK beaches.

And it's funny when I, and I do, obviously, if you get to the chance to go to the Greek beach, brilliant, and the water's gorgeous and everything.

But so-

Rob Bell:
Stop slugging off Greek beaches so much, are you?

Jono Hey:
But they're so different, they're so different.

And there's so many different things that you could do on that kind of beach than, you know, a sandcastle kind of beach or a rock pool kind of beach.

You know, some beaches, and some of the ones I've been to, in Greece a long time ago, they were just like sunbathing beaches, sunbathing in like Lyon or Lilo, and maybe you could knock a little ball around or something.

But there was no space.

Whereas some of the beaches, and I'm thinking of ones like in Wales, for example, like Rosili Beach, oh, is like genuinely an enormous, absolutely spectacular place.

Like you look at this beach and it just goes on for miles.

And it takes 10 minutes to walk to the sea.

There's incredible spaces.

So beaches vary so much, don't they?

And so, yeah, I think of beaches where you can make sandcastles.

And that's like one of the fun things to do.

But a lot of beaches, you can't.

Rob Bell:
At this point, should we introduce into the equation, your friend of mine, the Pebble Beach?

Stony, rocky Pebble Beaches.

A different kind of beach.

Jono Hey:
I mean, you don't get as messy.

They have that advantage.

Rob Bell:
You don't tend to run around as much.

Jono Hey:
Oh, I'm certainly not with bare feet.

Rob Bell:
Like getting out of the water, having done a swim, getting out or trying to get out of a slope on a Pebble Beach.

Tom Pellereau:
And you do that the most painful things.

You do that walk of like, does it make any difference, the walk that you do to kind of minimize the force going through your feet?

Rob Bell:
It's gonna hurt anyway.

Jono Hey:
A funny little compilation of like a video, just watching people try and make their way up the stone beach and all the funny movements you have to do to not make it.

Rob Bell:
So painful.

Jono Hey:
Actually, yeah.

Doesn't matter how good you look walking out of the water, because you're gonna walk up the pebbles like an idiot.

Rob Bell:
Another one of your sketches, Jono, that is beach related that I really enjoyed is the different types of surf breaks.

And I think you've included three on that sketch, three types of wave breaks that you will see at various beaches.

One's the beach breaks, where the shallowing of the water creates a wave as it comes in.

Another one is a point break, where you've got a point out, normally on the end of the beach, maybe a rocky outcrop.

Would it be a rocky, we call it a little headland that creates a break, and those waves kind of sweep across the beach sideways.

And what's the third one?

A reef, a reef break, where there's a reef further out from the beach, which suddenly creates a difference in depth, and the water gets popped up.

So you get waves breaking a bit further out.

That's a really, really nice one.

I like that sketch.

It's really nice.

As I remember when I first started surfing, those were some of the basics that you learn about the water.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, and I think it's sort of nice to look at waves and try and, I don't know, obviously surfers know this stuff because that's how you know where's good spots to surf.

But it's quite nice to look out and try and figure out what's going on.

And I remember looking at waves and going, what causes them to break?

And why do they do that interesting pattern?

There's another sketch called Anatomy of a Wave, a really old one, which talks about the crest and the amplitude and the wavelength and how it changes as it runs up over the sea floor and it bunches up.

And so the waves get higher as the sea floor rises.

And then at one point, the top starts to overtake the bottom.

And so I think a wave will start to break at a depth of about 1.3 times the height of the wave.

So it depends on the height, how much water is underneath the wave to how high the wave is.

You can sort of figure out when it's gonna break.

It's quite interesting looking at the beach and sort of figuring out these things.

It's so fundamental.

The other thing, I've never done one, but just the very fact is still a bit crazy to even say it that I remember as a kid when somebody told me that the tides are caused by the moon.

What are you talking about?

That little tiny little thing over there, how on earth is that doing that?

And then you have that view where you're like, oh wow, the whole of the ocean is getting pulled by the gravity of the moon in this direction and just like a bath, just getting pushed over to one side.

It's just incredible to think about these things.

Rob Bell:
It is awesome thinking of things on that scale, right?

Absolutely, wow, what?

And I find tides as something that if you don't live near the coast, this is from my own personal experience, this is highly anecdotal, but from not living near the coast, tides are something I didn't really appreciate or understand the importance of on a day-to-day basis until not that long ago, really.

But when you do spend a bit of time there, you realize, oh, this is really, really important.

If you want to do something down at the beach, surf, swim, play on the sand, you kind of need to know what the tides are doing because I've been caught out a few times.

Jono Hey:
There's quite a few, we went to a little pub where the car park is the beach and they say, check the tide times because otherwise your car is going to get washed away.

Rob Bell:
Well, the flip side of that is I went down to a beach in Kent.

Is it Kent or Sussex?

Kent, Sussex.

I went for a swim, a place called Canberra Sands.

I went to go for a swim.

When I got there, I didn't check the tide.

I thought, at a beach, there'll be water.

The tide was so far away because it's a really, really shallow beach.

It took about 20 minutes to walk to even get your feet wet and then to get to a depth where you could actually swim, i.e.

up to your waist, was another 10 minutes of wading out.

So I completely misjudged that.

And in the end, I just kind of sat in the water floating around for a bit, although this is rubbish.

And I've got a half hour walk back to the top of the beach.

Jono Hey:
Conversely, the tide comes in very quick there.

And I think Canberra Sands can be quite a dangerous beach because of the speed that the tide comes in and it completely can catch people.

It can, it can, it can.

But yeah, that's how you get those giant beach like Rosselli where it's just super flat for miles.

Whereas a lot of Mediterranean beaches tend to shelve off much quicker.

So the beach itself is much smaller.

And there's also less tide.

Less tide?

Fewer?

No, not fewer tides.

Rob Bell:
No, less tide or range.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, exactly.

So you don't notice it so much there.

Rob Bell:
One beach I've been on with you, Tommy, down in the southwest of France, when we were learning to surf, was a very steep beach.

And it was a beach break where we were trying to surf, where to the point where you'd get on the wave, if you're lucky enough to get onto the wave, but two seconds later, you were being dumped onto the sand because the waves were breaking so close to the beach.

Tom Pellereau:
Basically onto the beach.

I think I actually managed to once get up and discovered I was basically standing on the beach because I'd got onto the wave and then the wave had dumped onto the beach and I was like standing on a board on the beach going, how did that happen?

Rob Bell:
Absolutely brilliant.

Different types of beaches, different types of beaches.

I, at the risk of this is just one story or another, but Jono, another time I was on a beach with you in the south of France, absolute mayhem, the start of Iron Man Nice, Iron Man France.

We're on the beach and you're gonna go for a swim.

Lovely.

Go for a swim.

We do lots of swimming, but there's 2,000 other people getting in the water with you at the same time, at the same place.

And it is scary.

Jono Hey:
That was mental, wasn't it?

Tom Pellereau:
I remember watching that and I was terrified just watching it.

It was like a million salmon got in the sea at the same time.

Jono Hey:
Spashing each other.

Tom Pellereau:
As far as I could work out.

Like closed fist swimming.

Jono Hey:
Literally swam directly over the top of you, isn't it?

You wouldn't think it was possible, but it turns out it is.

Rob Bell:
If you pack enough humans together tightly enough, it becomes a liquid and you can swim through it.

Tom Pellereau:
It's probably faster just grabbing other people and pulling over the top of them.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, just some memories from beaches there.

I'm gonna bring it onto another one of your sketches, Jono.

And we've talked about this a little bit, the clearing of the beach, but I get this, maybe this is the flip side of the not clearing of the beach.

The strand line, talk us through the strand line in your sketch for that, because it's a beautiful sketch again.

It's a really kind of big vista sketch.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, yeah.

And I remember doing it, and actually it was based on a beach we went to in Kent, where we unexpectedly, because we hadn't really planned to go to the beach, just had a really, really lovely day.

That was when we end up in the water in your pants, because you didn't really expect to go to the beach.

Rob Bell:
You know, that kind of thing.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, and it had a really noticeable strand line.

And so the sketch is essentially the line of stuff, which is the high point of the tide, where it deposits all the seaweed and the shells and things, and then it starts coming back down again.

And so you often get this little line of debris that you can sort of walk along and look for things, which is interesting, because actually, I don't know, you might assume that it would leave stuff at every point, not just at the high point, but it doesn't.

And so you get this really, really lovely line, which shows you like the history of the tide and what's been going on, and it gives you a place to look for stuff.

I remember when I put it out, actually, I wrote that the line is where debris is stranded by high tide.

It kind of makes sense, it's stranded.

But of course, strand means beach in many languages, like Dutch, for example.

And so that is actually the name for a beach is a strand.

And I've actually, I've not looked into it since then, but is there a link between being stranded?

Rob Bell:
Stranded, being beached.

Jono Hey:
And so I actually don't know, I wrote it stranded by the high tide because it makes sense, but it might not be the derivation of it.

It might just be like, this is the line on the beach.

It's a lovely little spot and a feature of a beach, I think.

Rob Bell:
In the original sketch, Jono, you talk about the sand being a place of soft landing.

It can be.

It's relative.

It's all relative in a...

It can also be quite hard and quite abrasive.

The abrasive qualities of sand are used on an industrial scale, right?

It's called sandblasting.

Jono Hey:
This is true.

Tom Pellereau:
Sandpaper.

Rob Bell:
Sandpaper, yeah.

Jono Hey:
But if you leave kids on a beach, they'll probably start jumping at some point.

Tom Pellereau:
Yes.

Jono Hey:
And that, you don't do that in concrete quite the same way that you do on a beach.

So I know what you mean.

I mean, it's just like water can be hard and snow can be very hard, but they can, they also have their soft, soft aspects.

So it's a bit more forgiving, I suppose, as forgiving might be better than a soft landing.

Rob Bell:
There are the largest sand dunes in Europe are called the Dune de Pila, and they're down the southwest of France, near Bordeaux.

And they're massive, absolutely massive, and you can get to the top.

And there's quite a sharp drop off on one side.

So you can kind of run and launch yourself off the top of the sand dune.

And the sand up there is really, really soft.

So you land and it's like being a soft play, it's lovely.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
Even more stuff that a beach has going for, isn't it?

I was trying to think, I was trying to think, are there any other environments that have that variation?

Like a woodland is lovely, and you can play in a woodland, fields and gardens are nice.

Mountains are nice.

Snow is nice, but none of them have the same.

Tom Pellereau:
Snow is a bit more than nice.

I'd go with it, I think mountains and snow are up there with sand and beaches.

Jono Hey:
I, snow, you have to...

Tom Pellereau:
We're on a tricky one here.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, but you know, it's like, first of all, it's really cold.

So you have to like dress up for it.

And you have to like, you might get really cold.

You also like, like a lot of the fun you have, it might be like, if you have to take equipment with you to have that fun.

Like you have to walk up a mountain, which is really hard work.

You have to, you know, you might take skis or something and you have to buy all that stuff.

Rob Bell:
I can draw parallels.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, no, I mean, don't get me wrong.

I think snow is lovely, but I think there's just more.

I mean, you don't have all the animals at beaches, you don't have equivalent of rock pools at the beach.

We can make, like, snow castles, but you don't.

Partly because it's too cold after a while.

It doesn't tidy up in quite the same way as it does on the beach, which really tidies up.

Tom Pellereau:
Who knew this episode was gonna turn into a beach versus mountains?

It wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't a...

With Jono debating.

Jono Hey:
Tommy, you tell me, I was trying to think, is there any other place, is there any place which has it as much as a beach?

I'm not sure there is.

Rob Bell:
We talked, we talked a lot there, boys.

We've talked a lot about the many different things that we've enjoyed doing on beaches.

Do you think stuff we enjoy seeing, the stuff we've enjoyed doing, but what about the way you're, what about the way beaches affects you emotionally?

You know, anything that you've kind of noticed or are aware and conscious of in terms of how you feel when you're at a beach or after you've had the day on the beach, whatever it might be.

Jono Hey:
For me, I feel like it changes.

And that's what's also, again, magic about the beach.

I feel like you can have lots of different emotions at the beach.

Like you can have the adrenaline.

Like, I mean, there's a cave at our beach.

It was really exciting to like go explore the cave and you can go get bashed by the waves and that's really exciting.

But also you can have that like amazing sort of sense of perspective about how much bigger the ocean is than anything.

Like just really like puts you in your place going to a beach and looking out at the horizon.

And then at the same time, you can be like really creative at the beaches.

You know, like playing in sand is like super creative.

And then you can have like incredible calm at beaches too, can't you?

Like you can just sort of contemplate and take it easy and just, just, just look.

And so I feel like I get all of those emotions from beaches at different times, which is wonderful.

Rob Bell:
What you said there, Jono, really chimes with me.

You can just look, there's very little I enjoy doing, more than just sat on a bit of Driftwoods on the beach.

Maybe it's a bit chilly and you're wrapped up nice and warm.

You've got a cup of tea with you or something.

And you just look and my mind's completely blank.

It's completely clear.

And I'm just enjoying what is happening around me.

And I think the reason and the time of day when I probably tend to do that the most when I am in a beach environment is at sunset.

Because I might have gone to the beach to watch the sunset.

It might not have as compelling a reason to go and just do that at other times of day.

And so I have had many sunsets on beaches where I do feel very calm.

And I get quite nostalgic generally in life, but I get quite nostalgic in those moments as well.

It's a lovely moment of tranquility and reflection, as you say.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

Rob Bell:
Gorgeous.

Jono Hey:
I've often wondered, I don't know if this is true, whether there's any like real effect of whether or not you live like say on the East Coast of the US versus the West Coast of the US.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, good point.

Yep.

Jono Hey:
Because on the West Coast, which is sort of famed, like you almost imagine the West Coast, you imagine like a beach and a sunset, because the sun sets over the sea as you're looking West.

Whereas on the East Coast, the sun rises typically over the sea if you're looking East.

And of course you can still get the lovely colors in the sky, but it's a different kind of thing to be sat on the beach watching the sun go into the sea than it is to be there right early in the morning and watch it coming up.

I feel like it's a different sort of environment and mindset you might be in.

So I was wondering if there was some macro effect, I don't know if that happens in the UK, people on the East Coast beaches versus West Coast, I don't know.

Rob Bell:
I mean, maybe, I certainly get it because I've been there at kind of sunrises, maybe not sunrises, but early in the morning as well.

And it's almost like things are getting going on an East Coast beach, if you're there for the arrival of the sun, or as things are calming down as the sun is setting.

I mean, there's a beach up in Anglesey, a place called Rossniger, and it sits due west.

And the sunsets there are absolutely stunning, guaranteed.

And I've had many up there.

It's just amazing.

Just sat there.

Just sat there, time, quiet, beautiful.

And I think you've probably had those a lot in California as well, Jono, due west.

Jono Hey:
Due west, yeah.

It has the same sort of bracket of things like watching fire, watching fires are just like transfixing because they're always changing.

And you don't have to do anything and these things just keep changing in front of you.

And the beach is always changing.

The waves are changing.

As you said, watching the sunset, you watch it go down.

The light is changing and you just sit there and take it all in, don't you?

It's a lovely feeling.

Rob Bell:
It is magical.

Tommy, have you experienced meaningful times on beaches or times when you can remember for how they made you feel rather than what you were doing there necessarily?

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah, for sure.

I think you've just said it beautifully, both of you.

Ironically, I look up and there's a picture of Sarah, myself and the kids on a beach just beside the screen here, on a lovely Greek beach, the best beaches in the world, obviously, according to a Greek friend.

A lovely, lovely evening with, I think, the sun setting quite close behind.

And on the other side of us in the mountains.

So, I think, Jono, in retrospect, I think you're right.

I think the beaches are the most incredible playgrounds.

And what I was wondering is, I've spent a lot of time recently going to birthday parties at sort of soft plays, temp in bowling, jumping.

And I recently heard about one, which was like indoor parkour.

And every year there's like a new concept one.

So the new parties are now going to like, so there's Rock Up recently, which is like a climbing indoor one.

And as Jono was talking at the beginning, I was like, I wonder if the next concept will be like a beach, because it's got so much to offer as a potential.

It seems ridiculous, but I can actually see someone getting away with a warehouse and just filling it with loads of sand and having salty water at one end and going, there we go, that's 20 pounds please.

Jono Hey:
And making it warm.

Rob Bell:
Tom, when you say you can see someone getting away with this, I mean, I'm thinking, I've got someone in mind, somebody who seems to have this idea, feels quite passionate about it.

Tom Pellereau:
It's not my business, but it does seem like a good idea, but it might be, it might be a good idea.

Jono Hey:
My final point on beaches actually was that they are free, which is also an incredible thing.

And that's also what makes them so egalitarian, right?

Anybody could go down the beach anytime and you don't pay, you know.

You could take all the kids down to the beach for a party.

I think they'd have a whale of a time and you wouldn't have to pay.

Tom Pellereau:
Living in St.

Albans is a bit more tricky, but we'd love to live closer to the sea certainly.

Rob Bell:
There we go.

Thank you chaps.

And as the tide turns and the sun sets on another episode of Sketchplanations, The Podcast, we pack up our blankets, fold away the windbreaker and trek slash limp back to the car, having snapped the strap on one of my flip flops.

From here, it's only a half hour to get out of the car park and a short four hours through bank holiday traffic to reach home.

But no matter the hassle, there's no doubt we'll be back again just as soon as we can.

Please do send us stories of times you've had at the beach, what they mean to you, perhaps things you've noticed there.

We'd love to know if there's anything we've been missing out on.

And you can email us on hello at sketchplanations.com.

And we'll be going through last week's correspondence in just a second.

But for now, thank you very much for listening.

Go well, stay well.

Goodbye.

Tom Pellereau:
Goodbye.

Rob Bell:
Hello, we're back.

And we've just time to go through a few messages that we received since our last episode, which was on the Peter principle.

There was good, really good reactions there on LinkedIn.

You know, people are going in there, applying it and considering it within their professional lives a bit more, I'd say than on other platforms.

But out of courtesy, I think I'm going to keep all the messages that we've had about the Peter principle anonymous.

Because talking about one's bosses and one's company management can be quite emotive at times, depending on the day of the week and that kind of thing.

So from anon, I had a message saying, so this is about the Peter principle.

That's happening at my company.

It's an S show at management level.

It's stagnated the company and there's no order.

So the egos below them are all infighting.

Which I guess you could see happening.

Doesn't, does it?

You can see why I'm keeping this anonymous.

This one's interested, I thought.

So on the Peter principle, the problem you run into is the star who may not even want to be promoted.

And we did touch on this a little bit.

It doesn't want to be managed by someone inferior to them, but you need someone to manage the division, so they almost have to become the manager.

This anonymous messenger says, in my industry, the stars are the ones given the money to run or to invest.

And very rarely can they do it on their own.

And so they have to get promoted and manage as it just can't be done otherwise.

I think we did talk about this in the podcast how some people might not want to be managed.

They might want to just continue doing the role that they're very, very good at without necessarily progressing up and getting more responsibility and actually then being taken away from that role.

But what this messenger is saying that often there is just no other option.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, I think, I mean, it probably is true in most companies.

I remember reading about Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs.

Wozniak is this absolute classic engineer.

And he basically only stayed on at Apple as long as he could just keep doing engineering.

But of course, not everybody's in that situation where you can just stay doing your thing because there's an immensely successful company rolling alongside and other people to cover all the things.

So yeah, tricky.

We talked a little bit in the episode about, there's not always a graceful way out, a graceful way down.

So I've heard of like some companies having a like a fail bonus or something, a bonus for like cutting a product because it's going to cost you a lot more if you go to market with it and it fails.

So you want people to say, you know what?

We tried it and it didn't work and that'd be okay, but that's quite hard to do.

And if you're leading a company and it's a big thing, it's quite hard to sort of step down and say it's not working or whatever, or I messed up or the technology is not as good as we thought it was.

That's really difficult.

Rob Bell:
That's interesting that you say there are companies who, I don't know if it's reward or incentivize those kinds of decisions or policy, company policies, I should say.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, trying new products and stuff, but it's very rare that you'd ever do that with a promotion.

Like, well done for trying this thing.

It hasn't worked out.

But great, thanks for letting us know that you were struggling and it wasn't good enough before things went wrong.

Let's find you something else.

Rob Bell:
Because that's not human nature, is it?

Nobody really wants to admit to...

Jono Hey:
And we're brought up with this view that you should be climbing the ladder and always progressing in your career, going up and up, and just to stay at some level and not climb anywhere feels like you're failing in your life.

So it's quite hard for people to admit that stuff.

I don't know if that's what was happening there, but we could probably reduce the prevalence of the Peter Principle if you had more graceful ways out for everybody in all sorts of walks of life.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, beautifully put Jono, beautifully put.

This is why I like coming back to it a week or so later.

It's quite refreshing sometimes.

I'm gonna skip right through to something that I feel like absolutely have to address, which isn't about the Peter Principle, but I will round off this week's podcast by going back to our episode on the words biweekly and fortnightly and how biweekly can be a very ambiguous word.

And at the time we used that episode to transition from publishing a weekly podcast to a podcast every two weeks, a fortnightly podcast.

So in some of the admin in behind the scenes to do that, I needed to go on to the Apple Podcasts platform for podcast providers to change that from a weekly to fortnightly.

And there's a drop down menu, so it's very easy to do.

Or so I thought.

But then I delve right into the world of ambiguity in language, because let me read to you the choices that you have on that drop down menu.

You have daily, weekly, semi-weekly, biweekly, monthly, semi-monthly, bi-monthly, or no set schedule.

I mean, I was very tempted to go no set schedule because it was almost a stab in the dark between semi-weekly, bi-monthly, semi-monthly.

What?

I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

Jono Hey:
That is amazing, isn't it?

They need to listen to the episode.

Bit cool.

It's funny that semi-weekly is after weekly.

Rob Bell:
See, thank you, because you know we talked about, a lot of it was about the context.

You can tell what it means by context.

Daily, weekly, semi-weekly, bi-weekly.

It doesn't help.

Tom Pellereau:
Why not semi-weekly?

Or semi-monthly?

Rob Bell:
I can't even remember what I went for in the end.

Probably bi-weekly.

You just gave up.

There we go.

Well, thank you for all of your messages.

Do keep sending them in.

We love hearing from you.

And we look forward to everything you have to say about fun at the beach.

Until next time, cheerio.

All music on this podcast series is provided by the very talented Franc Cinelli.

And you can find many more tracks at franccinelli.com.