A day in Liverpool (This was a scheduled post).
I recently went to Liverpool to get my car serviced. I took the opportunity while I was there to test out a couple of video cameras that I was thinking of taking on holiday.The cameras I took out with me were a DJI Pocket II and a Sony X3000. I’m glad I did this, as both cameras proved unsuitable for the upcoming trip, so instead I bought a new one that will do the job of both. More on this perhaps when I return but in the meantime though here’s the footage I short whilst killing time in Liverpool.
Be warned - the video is quite rough in parts - but that was also really the point. I was testing out their 'run and gun' capabilities. While I’m here I’ll mention that I’ve only been to Liverpool perhaps ten or so times in my life, all of those were brief trips too, so I’m definitely not a suitable tour guide.
Oh and the thing in the video I was attempting to eat for lunch was a ‘world famous salt & pepper box’ - something I’d seen online https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/whats-on/food-drink-news/tried-liverpools-famous-salt-pepper-17454220 (warning - this page has more spam than Hawaii). The audio where I explained this was unfortunately lost to the wind …and rain.
Have a good one.
Comments (58)
Hi from New Zealand, Mat. Thanks for this fascinating travelogue.
Excellent & entertaining! I tried pausing the video and scanning the QR code off the screen - registration closed, oh well.. The Insta360 X3 is excellent for making this sort of video, captures video from all directions all the time. You can point it anywhere while shooting and have the app follow you with the occasional reframing to see things from 'behind the camera' in post.
I think you should do more of this type of thing. you may not think so, but this was just perfect! Thank you.
DJI has a great picture, and the audio came through clear despite the wind.
This was a really fun your and casual walk. Loved all the things you pointed out. Thanks for sharing!
Well, I'll take the DJI Pocket shots over the Sony any day! The pictures are far better, they are straight and they don't bounce up and down. I use my Pocket II for just about everything these days and certainly for everything not on a tripod. On other matters that was a lot of fun! You are the most wonderfully grumpy old man, Mat. I loved the line about "Maybe I can win an AMI, drive it to the garage and leave it there". That and several other comments made me and my wife both laugh out loud. By the way, I tried to register for a free AMI using your shot of the GR code but the competition has ended. If you haven't heard by now, I'm afraid you didn't win it. Hope you got your car back successfully. Thanks for a fun video. S.
From the shot at the end I guess the new car is either a Mercedes or another Smart. That is definitely historic footage of Wilko. We were in town today and the local one has now closed for good. When they first opened I thought "Woolworth's could have been like this" Now they are like Woolworths. I don't think they will be missed that much. B&M and Home Bargains seem to have out bargained them. I've never been in Costco. The nearest one is 25 miles away.
I love Liverpool, so any chance to see someone walking round it is a delight!
Great tour! My mum's from just across the river in Wallasey so i've been there many times but not Liverpool proper. Looks like Birmingham on-the-sea to me, i guess all these big once-industrial cities look the same though if you take away all the specific landmarks; especially when all the shops and shopping centres seem to be the same in every single town and city. You looked knackered by the end of it, hope the dealers didn't muck you about too much.
The sad thing is it's the same in Sydney as it is in Liverpool. Same shops, Women's clothes and food, same brands.
Two days late, I finally get round to watching this. Never been to Liverpool, but my train to Scarborough to York would eventually end up there. Sadly, it seems to look like like an identikit version of Leeds, albeit with more newer buildlngs. I always think of This Morning with Richard and Judy when I see the Albert Dock. Also features, un-regenerated, in Boys From The Blackstuff.
That was fun - thanks for taking us along! (I got curious and looked up the tobacco warehouse flats - very cool architecture.)
Wow, that was a REALLY long walk! No wonder your back started to act up! I love these videos. Really do. And I'd never seen Liverpool before, so this was a treat! Thanks Mat!
That lunch looked amazing, that would feed me for a couple days, or I would eat it all in 1 day and feel very sick for the next.
How is the diet going?
Great tour of Liverpool, Mat - although you missed the wonderful Beatles statues by Albert Dock. My prediction for town centres is that in years to come, they will almost only have cafés, hairdressers, nail and tattoo parlours because those are about the only things you can't get on-line. But I also think that once property rents fall as a consequence of 'regular' shops moving out, town centres will become places where people live once again. In Northampton, where I live, the former M&S and BHS sites are being converted into flats. We are also blessed with a 'Pound Shop' on one side of the road and a '99p store' immediately opposite, raising the interesting question of whether one should cross the road to save a penny..... Have a good weekend, Mat.
Locally 99p Stores were bought out by Poundland who should now be renamed "Not many things are a Pound land". In the past eight years cat food has gone up from 50p to 125p.
I enjoyed this walking tour of Liverpool. Your "man on the street" perspective is more engaging than any slick promotional video from the tourism bureau. The city looks very clean. I don't see graffiti or other signs of urban blight that are common where I live. Of course I didn't expect you to interview panhandlers or visit the "seedy" areas, but then who wants that? It would be an amusing turn, but safety first!
Really enjoyed that. Liverpool seems to have improved a lot since I visited almost 20 years ago. Looks quite interesting now.
Really enjoyed this, Liverpool is an amazing city. With 1 million subscribers on YouTube you don't get recognised. Thanks for making us a part of your day and showing me a part of Liverpool I hadn't seen
I've been only a few times to the UK, mostly for work and... I am quite looking to go back actually. There is also a lot of hiking I want to do,need the kids to grow up a bit. Not looking forward to midges though
Inspired me to look into visiting Liverpool - love those buildings and the history. Titanic hotel looks great. Thank you !
10.06 Miles - that did surprise me. I'd have been knackered!Anyway quite surprised how watchable I found this, really enjoyable, I hope you do more. Techmoan Tours!
Does your Cost Co make too big of a deal of the stuff they sell in their food court? Like, they have "the best" pizza, or "amazing" sheet cake. You go online and you find folks obsessed with having meals there! I suspect it has to do with such low expectations that a hint of effort goes a longer way that it should. (Sorry, I know 99% of your video is NOT about Cost Co! But then your video has 0% Beatles mentions! Hah!)
Thanks for the tour that didn’t focus on Albert Dock and the Three Graces. That’s all anyone ever wants to photograph and it’s dead boring. Loved seeing the new Marks & Sparks location, close up of the bridge (lift bridge?), St. John’s, the Bluecoat.
Never been in Liverpool, thank you for showing us the city to us foreigners !
You Liverpool tour reminds me a lot of taking a walk tour around the docks in Long Beach (California, where incidentally, the HMS Queen Mary has resided for decades). It's interesting to see charming similarities that are different enough to only be "sort of" familiar, such as the various dock machinery that is no longer working but kept as a historical reminder, and the less charming stuff like the shock of seeing a CostCo that looks exactly every CostCo in Los Angeles. Ugh! It's too bad brands are so paranoid about their identity that they can't branch out and add some visuals that reference the local area. Then again, when you need an industrial drum of mayonnaise or a frozen pizza that could serve as a spare tire, CostCo's the place!
Times have certainly changed. My lunchtime walk takes me past the entrance of a working docks, From the number of Teslas I see on transporters I think they all come into the U.K. through there. Occasionally I see something interesting like a very dilapidated LHD Triumph Stag on the back of a transporter which had come back home after maybe fifty years.
It would of course have to be the DJI Pock3t. Thanks for a very unusual video tour! I did see some of these things on a brief visit to Liverpool about 7 years ago.
What a wonderful video for my day off work recuperating from a trip to the dentist. Quite the beautiful city. I understand what you said about the stores. It would feel a bit deceptive when you look around and all the shops are food or clothes. Give me a store that sells ANYTHING else and I'll go in. Thank you so much for the fun tour.
Well done, Mat! That’s a long long walk. What a lovely rainy country we call home. This new app is awful isn’t it? Not sure if that added to the sense of gloom. Hope you have a great holiday.
Was there anything other than the size of the screen that proved the DJIP2 unsuitable?
I enjoyed your tour around Liverpool. Thank you Mat, it was a real treat.
Mat, what a nice tour of that part of Liverpool. Really looks a lot nicer than I thought it would due to the only reference I have is from 60 years ago. Those old black and white films abut the Beatles and so forth. Great job and I really did watch the entire video. It made me feel like it was a European place with words I could understand. Thanks, Mat. Really enjoyed it.
10 Miles. You are crazy. Techmoan's walk through Liverpool. Liked that.
3:00: That was exactly what I thought when I was there on the little Mersey river explore cruise they offer. It looks like a stereo system from the 70s.
I took this river cruise in 2018 and the "tour guide" (played from tape) explicitly compared the ventilation shafts to a stereo recorder. This seems to be a very common perception.
You're right, Claire Richards was the one from Steps. Also, according to Google streetview, that photo developing place you mentioned appears to have disappeared somewhere between August 2019 and November 2020.
Ah my wife was right! She swore she remembers a photo place around there when we stayed in the neighbourhood March 2020 (do not attempt to remember the Event).
Go to the Isle of Man, have a nice little holiday there and then make a short video with Big Clive. Don't know about what though. That's not an entirely serious suggestion. It could be fun though.
Is the Central Docks development the reason why the Liverpool Docks were stripped of their World Heritage status?
Very cool!! I like the little bounce from walking, which you could see in the forward view using the first camera -- I kept expecting your fist to come in from the side of the screen to start punching, or maybe unload with a chain gun... And the city looks so different from when I was there in the early 90's!
I believe I've been to that Chinese supermarket a few years ago. They were selling cow's uterus, which I was equally intrigued and disgusted by 😂
Is it me or does Mat sound vaguely Liverpudlian when he's wandering around the city? I realise he lives fairly near but the Scouse accent is a very localised thing.
Yeah, accents are weird. Scouse is a mix of local Lancashire, Welsh and Irish accents, along with the probably hundreds of accents of sailors that settled there. Mat is not far from Liverpool so there'll naturally be a bit of similarity.
This is just a treat. I think it safe to say I will never make it across the pond again, but I so love to see these places, especially shown by someone who's familiar with the area, yet is rediscovering what's there and what's changed. And 10 miles walked, "You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!" Btw, I agree with your assessment on the cameras. The DJI was more preferrable, but the Sony, though shakier, had more presence to me. I hope the purchased replacement turns out to be the best. Please let us know about the new camera... of course, when you return from your holiday. Best wishes.
That was a nice tour of Liverpool, I've never been. Also that was such a dirty lunch but I'd happily dig in.
This was a very enjoyable video. I can't wait for Mat to launch his new urbanist YouTube channel-but what would he name it? UrbanMoan? TransitMoan? Not Just Tapes? How about just calling it: THE 3QUALISER!
Wow this new Patreon feed is TERRIBLE
I couldn't agree more - they've destroyed the app and I am so confused.
Not had time to watch this yet, but wow! Thanks, Mat. I'm a Scouser that moved away and haven't been back in a good while, and I just booked flights back for Christmas this morning. I've been listening to The La's all day and now... this. I'm cancelling the movie I was planning to watch tonight and getting this on the projector after dinner. Full immersion.
It's hilarious you bring up EVRI. I'm having a nightmare with them right now as my local courier keeps marking every delivery as 'unable to be delivered' even though I mark it as 'PARCEL BOX' and they know where I live. I know they know where I live because they have delivered 4 parcels to me... Each one late by at least 3 days.
Yodel aren't much better. They delivered a parcel to the wrong house about half a mile away. If it wasn't for the kindness of the people who brought it over I would have never known where it went.
Not watched this yet but Liverpool is an incredible city, somewhere I could totally see myself living. You're so lucky to have somewhere so packed with culture on your doorstep (and across the Mersey, I guess).
10 miles - holy mackerel, I never would have made it 🥵 and my poor feet would be complaining. Good job 👍🏻. This video is great and reminds me so much of the action camera videos of the past with buskers in Manchester. Loved your Eurythmics song reference. Thoroughly enjoyed the historical sites of Liverpool and that meal looked delicious. 🤍 Edited: the person asking for a light was probably looking for surreptitious way to flirt with whoever was smoking; and you are a sweet husband for trying your best to find the item for your Mrs.
"Christmas in CostCo." Might be a good song title for the next Nick Lowe Christmas album? Hopefully anyone spending Christmas at CostCo won't need to survive by finding "a burger in a bin."
If you’re interested in deeper dives into these, the Camera Conspiracies channel on YouTube tends to be a fun watch. He’s been doing comparisons of the Sony X3000, DJI Pocket, GoPro Hero, etc. recently. https://youtu.be/49zzrAlWdho?si=Ex4gKkxNi0L3_uYb
Well, that was an informative yet exhausting travelogue. I've often wondered what Liverpool was like, not having been there since I was a kid in 1985. I doubt I'll be taking the X2 bus anytime soon, as I can be disappointed for less here in Preston.