Unfiltered Story #67228

(I work in a Tourist Information booth, in a Welsh seaside resort that – although in the ‘most Welsh’ county of Wales – is renowned for being pretty Anglicised. Since the primary target market for the resort is mainly working-class people from the English midlands, there is not much to divert the attentions of the middle/upper classes. A well-dressed, well-heeled elderly woman approaches my booth, and speaks to me in the most hyper-pronounced upper class English accent I’ve ever heard):

Customer: Are there any cultural events in [town]?

Me: Not really, [town] is a seaside resort – people mainly come for the scenery and beaches.

Customer: I want to experience a bit of Welsh culture. Is there anything NEAR [town]?

Me: Well, Côr Meibion [nearby valley area] have a concert tonight in [nearby village] Village Hall at seven-thirty.

Customer: No, no, no. That’s no good! I hate male voice choirs. They always sing in Welsh.

Me: 0_o

(She then spent half an hour leaning over my desk and invading my personal space and telling me that she went to see “the really famous Welsh choir” in a concert in Cardiff and she was “ticked off” that all bar one of the songs were in Welsh, and that she went to the Eisteddfod Genedlaethol three years ago and swore to never go back because it was “too Welsh” and that really, the Welsh culture would be “much more alive and kicking if it was more accessible to English people”. She was cross because she’d come to [town] for “sun, sea and culture” and it wasn’t very sunny and there was “no culture” and the sea was “too cold” and that even if it was warm she wouldn’t have enjoyed it because the town and beach was “crawling with the worst kind of tourists”.

I still have no idea how she even got the idea that [town] could possibly have anything remotely like whatever it was she wanted to experience, it’s been a sandy-beach-and-icecream resort for the working classes since Victorian times – it’s famous for it!)