Norwich Castle

A couple of weekends ago (well, three by now) Janet and I headed for a little break in Norwich (I was tempted to title this post "Ha' yer fa'r got a dickey, bor?" but we didn't really hear that broad an accent, and certainly no one enquiring about my father's ownership of a donkey). We saw a couple of cathedrals, some pubs, a market, an old hall, a restaurant and some swans.

Arrival

Norwich, a lovely view

Having spent a couple of hours on a train we arrived to wonder if we'd accidentally went home. A small swarm of black and white clad geordies passed us by. This was due to Newcastle playing Norwich in a friendly, by complete coincidence. So I managed to travel all that way, with the lads in town, and not see the match (not that Jan would have been too impressed with me abandoning her in a strange town!). With a few hours to spare until we could check in it was time to wander round a bit.

Market

Bakers Oven---It got Jan very excited

Norwich isn't the biggest town centre, so it didn't take too long to have a quick look around. Should you require mushy peas, then the market has a place for you. The market is a strange little affair, with it's permanently covered little stores in their long rows. As we weren't in a particular pea mood we settled for the pub on the corner, where we could enjoy a pint and watch the world go by for a bit. We wandered round the rest of the town, noting places to revisit the next day when less burdened down with awkward bags, until the clock ticked round to the time to once more pull the map out and try and find our way to accommodation.

Apartment

We did manage to find the apartment without too much trouble actually. This was well situated for town (a short five minute walk away from the centre, once you know where it is) and comfortable enough, though not without its quirks. They'd obviously inserted a couple of walls to create two rooms from one (part of the bedroom window frame was actually still in the lounge). This meant the lightswitch for the bedroom was somehow in the hall by the entrance door (and should anyone ever need to know, the hall lightswitch is low level near a socket). There's quite a dangerous step between hall and kitchen too.

Out and About

The Gardner's Arms/Murderers

Having dumped backs and recovered it was time to it was time to head out and about into town. We managed to find somewhere I knew existed by had never understood, the pub with two names. Officially the Gardner's Arms it apparently got the nickname the Murderer's due to some nefarious act on the premises. It's a nice enough pub as well, decent beer. It wasn't our favourite pub though. That we discovered entirely by accident; The Ribs of Beef, in a quiet spot by the River Wensum, with a little row of outside tables. With a nice summer sky it was pretty much perfect. We did also manage to find the oldest pub in Norwich at one point too, but it wasn't as nice.

Help We're Lost

We couldn't stay there forever though, so, promising to return, we journeyed on. There were probably more pubs. There was certainly the Woolpack, from which we emerged and began to wander down the road; only to realise we weren't entirely sure where it was taking us and wisely back tracking. Having become a little lost it turned out to be a little late to find food. Having a fully equipped apartment turned out to be a good idea as we wandered into Tesco to acquire pizza!

Sunday

Sunday was the first day for proper exploration. With a little list of possible places to visit, we headed out the door to find the first of them.

Plantation Garden

The lovely plantation gardens

The Plantation Garden is somewhere I'd seen the signpost for a few times on previous visits but never investigated before. I'm glad we did though as, nestled amongst the hotels and guest houses, it provides a little island of quirky tranquillity. Originally created in the mid-nineteenth century from a chalk quarry by the upholster/cabinet maker Henry Trevor, the gardens are these days restored and cared for by their own trust. The trust have managed to restore much of the once abandoned gardens to reveal their strange and interesting features, with gothic style fountain and "medieval" style walls created from locally produced "fancy" bricks. The whole thing has a charm of its own, that even the light rain couldn't dampen (the few other visitors at that time in the morning seemed to have anticipated this and all had umbrellas).

Forum

The Forum, Norwich

Having delighted in the garden we headed down into the town proper. There we investigated one of Norwich's newest buildings, it's centre piece of modern architecture. The Forum contains the central library, as well as the local BBC and other facilities. As well as my almost distractedly wandering behind the counter in the little shop (form where we bought postcards to send ourselves and others) we were somewhat surprised to see a bunch of artificial christmas trees and smoke. The wardrobe with children passing through suggested that this was Narnia related, though what the apparently bright pink thing on the far side of the wardrobe was I have no idea (all part of the Norfolk Children and Young People's Film Festival, it seems).

Getting over that little surprise the cafe did reasonable cups of coffee and tea while we got a breath back and decided where to head next. Of course next was shopping, We visited the little shop we'd seen the day before, and wandered through the Royal Arcade. There we managed to avoid buying anything in the toy shop but just had to get some mustard from the Coleman's shop. Enough shopping though; on with being tourists!

Castle

The exterior of Norwich Castle

Of course we couldn't visit Norwich without visiting the castle!. We started in the museum/art gallery part (housed in what was once the prison buildings which came to occupy the site). There we could wonder at paintings, the array of stuffed birds and animals (why is it stuffed birds always seem creepiest?) and the vast collection of teapots. By sheer coincidence we'd discovered from the advertising around town that there was a photographic Beatles to Bowie exhibition also on, which kept Jan happy even when we realised we'd actually seen pretty much the same thing at the Laing in Newcastle (we seem to be following the exhibition tour around the country). We weren't prepared for the Retrospective of Bridget Riley at the back of the Beatles stuff though. Don't stare at those paintings for too long! Made us all wobbly it did.

Having taken in enough art and teapots we stumbled upon the castle proper. The little model is still there, along with the suit of armour. Standing in the main area one does get a sense of how large the keep is, even if the feeling of how the castle would have been is lacking due to the lack of floors. The fact it is only the keep means it doesn't take too long to wander around as well, though next time I think we'll definitely have to do the battlements tour (feel cheated to have been there and never made it to the top). Having waved goodbye to the dragon it was time to set off again.

Along The River

The grand plan called for a stroll along the riverside, as the morning's drizzle had faded away and it seemed like a pleasant enough thing to do. Armed with map I promptly got us a bit lost trying to find our designated starting point of Carrow Bridge, but eventually we were able to wander across and look down on Norwich's boom towers before turning along the river bank.

The swans show off

The walk started pretty well. First there was the Dood. He was sat chilling in some sort of barn like building by the river, with Oasis blaring out loudly. It looked the sort of pad and relaxing Sunday we'd all love. Then there was the family of swans who swam by. They acted as if they knew they were the perfect little family, the two adults and two cygnets. The adults even turned their heads in unison to look straight at my as I took a photo, as if to say "Yes, we are beautiful, aren't we?"

Pull's Ferry---the prettiest spot in Norwich

Making it along the river to the station we stopped for refreshments in the Complete Angler before continuing along to something I was sort of aware was there but had managed to not remember. Pull's Ferry is as picturesque as ever. Originally a water gate, with a canal running through to transport stone to build the cathedral, the flint building as several later additions. It was restored with money partly raised by the girl guides and now operates as tea rooms. I did start to wander up inside but was scared off by the sense of wandering into an old lady's kitchen and backed out!

The peculiar Cow Tower

Speaking of old buildings a pleasant walk further along the river brought sight of the Cow Tower, one of the earliest purpose built artillery blockhouses in England. It was placed to augment the defences of Norwich, rising up to cover the high ground on the opposite side of the river. Today it is an impressive but empty shell occupied by nothing but pigeons.

More refreshments required we were able to follow the river even further round to our favourite pun, the already mentioned Ribs of Beef. Had we not had dinner planned for later that evening we may have lingered much longer but we finally dragged our weary feet onwards along the Wensum's course, passing the strange rendition of Utopia on a riverside building to finally find ourselves wandering back up the road to the apartment, thoroughly tired and happy.

Utopia written on a building

A Good Night

Janet in Figaro's

After a well deserved rest it was time for dinner. First though we randomly popped in to admire the catholic cathedral on the way into town. They certainly don't build churches like they used to, with its impressive architecture soaring upward. Onwards though, to Figaro's (their flash doesn't seem to load in Firefox, try here to see. When even the pixie is happy you know it must be good. We both had the Funghi Al Figaro to start and while I followed with the excellent Spaghetti Alla Reggiana Jan had the equally good American Hot Pizza. Jan doesn't do pudding very often but I happily had a pretty damn fine tiramisu (having ummed and arrred because I know Antony's Portion is good). Suitably stuffed we managed to wander home to rest at the end of a second packed but very enjoyable day

Monday

All I can say to the people of Norwich is please get a bloody left luggage office. A check out time of ten meant dragging bags around for the day, as apparently the station contains no such place. Ahhh. Never mind, we worked our way down the list of things to see regardless.

Dragon's Hall

The Dragon Hall

First up was Dragon Hall, a medieval trader's hall close to the river. It's an interesting look back at Norwich's history but did feel a little small for the admission price (given it was only £6.20 for all we saw in the castle £5 here seemed a bit steep). Still, we did get to try on silly hats, and the dragon had to go to his hall.

Ian wearing a silly hat

Back Along The River

We'd actually passed by Dragon's Hall on the way to the river the day before and so decided to more or less follow our steps from that day again. The Dood was obviously busy on a Monday, for there was no sign of him. We were passed by the two days late people though, just before reaching the station. By now we felt we knew our way around quite well, so there was no worry of getting lost heading towards Pull's Ferry where we could turn for our second cathedral.

Cathedral

The more famous cathedral of Norwich

We wandered round the cathedral cloisters, watching people work through the easiest maze in the world until we found a very friendly old lady who insisted on forcing a leaflet upon us and ensuring we weren't lost. Having successfully negotiated such gatekeepers we entered the cathedral proper. It doesn't have as intimate a feel as its catholic counterpart but that can't be helped when it is built to an even grander scale. I have to say cathedrals always confuse me a little with there profusion of alters---why so many? We did have to avoid wandering into a service at one of them as we looked round. At least Janet's candle didn't go out.

Bell Hotel

Hungry we wandered back towards town, passing leaning buildings and ornate gateways around Tombland (named after open space I'm told, not graves!). The Bell Hotel is a familiar Norwich landmark by the castle and there we ate, whilst listening to some old man and his daughter(?) complaining about none arriving food (caused, as best we could make out, by his having given his age rather than their table number). Always entertaining.

Back to the Ribs

Swans on the river by the Ribs of Beef

We really couldn't leave without one more trip down to the river though, so we decamped to relax a last time in the Ribs. The family of swans even swam by as if to say goodbye. We didn't particularly want to leave when we heaved the bags on and back towards the station, but leave we must. A hurried and half finished pint in the Complete Angler saw us rushing to leap on the train home.

Next time we must see more of Norfolk's surrounding countryside and little villages but for this little weekend we had much jollificearshuns.

More Photos: I've uploaded more photos of the little trip.

The detection of the ball crossing the line is probably achievable, with a bit of work and trial and error. Anything else (determining offside, if a player has dived) still has problems nobody seems to have faced up to. For a start there have been several incidents in this world cup where the "expert" pundits have poured over several camera angles multiple times and still been unsure, or in disagreement. The beautiful game simply does not lend itself to stop start analysis of every split second decision, every moment. That is partly what makes it beautiful. There is another part though; something which I believe should be the underlying, fundamental guiding principle. It doesn't matter where the game is played.

In short it boils down to something I expressed in that long ago post, and it has not changed---nor do I believe I can see a way for it to change without creating a huge gap that simply should not be there. If you picked up the same players, and same officials, from Wembley, or St James's, or anywhere else and dropped them on the pitch in the local park down the road, you should get essentially the same game..

Can't see the Flash? You could always grab the AVI version.

More: A few more photos.

How quickly things change, and we can but hope that they keep changing. For what we have now, is broken.

(Spare a thought there for Michael Castle who was beaten into last place by the Monster Raving Loony Party)

This isn't too far different from the reported national result::

It doesn't take but a momentary look at the figures above¹ to notice that something must be sincerely wrong. The percentage figures included in the first column of the second table are the percentage of seats held. It is notable that they bear no resemblance to the percentage of the overall vote for those parties. Possibly more telling (however much we may be personally grateful for it) is the following fact. In amongst those "other" parties with no seats is the UK Independence Party. They received 917832 votes, 3.1% of all votes. That's more than the DUP. More than the Scottish National Party. In fact, it's more than anyone but the three major party. Yes, the fourth most popular party in this country have no seats in Parliament, whilst the Green Party (for instance) with three times less support, have. This cannot be right.

It's taken so long to write this post other problems with this brave new political world have emerged. It is very difficult to understand how the coalition government can possibly think how such an inconclusive election can give them a mandate to produce fixed term parliaments, particularly such long term ones. Nor do we get anything in the way of electoral reform that will solve the major problems with the current first past the post idea, including those mentioned above (the ever useful BBC have a nice tool to play with various election reforms here). There will, apparently, be a referendum on changing to Alternative Vote (AV). So you'll be able to vote for a little party, then have this ignored and your second vote for one of the bigger parties be counted (so long as they win of course). In fact it's acknowledged AV can actually lead to worse representation (in comparison to overall vote share) than the present system. This is nothing but a smoke and mirrors screen to be seen to be doing something while protecting the jobs of the incumbent power holders, as always.

Of course, getting an electoral system correct is far from easy. While the answer may appear to be proportional representation (PR) this has its own failings, not least of which is the removal of the direct link between representative and constituency (though how important that is when the MP spends most of their time in London is arguable). One also finds oneself starting to play with its pureness from a purely practical point of view (setting a minimum percentage required for a seat for example) until there is again just a contrived system which is easily biased to be just for you.

Personally I don't know why, if we're going to go along the AV route, we can't at least go along the path of AV+ (the coder in me desperately wants to write AV++). Something of a compromising amalgam it may be, but it may be the best we can do until someone comes up with something really better. Which might actually be a appropriate metaphor for this government too.

All the above figures are ever slightly skewed because there remains one seat to declare. Thirsk and Malton are still waiting following the death of the UK Independence Party candidate. Close enough for discussion though

In the first election I remember actually really being motivated for I find myself terribly torn. Part of the problem (the major part of it actually) is that despite the possibility of my vote counting (this certainly being an improvement over the last situation in York) I seem to be caught in the wrong marginal. My instincts and desires point me towards a Liberal Democrat vote but I must balance this against the fact that this is a Labour/Conservative marginal. In my opinion the only way to get this countries mess sorted is to end up with a hung parliament and the only way to do that is probably to prevent the Conservatives gaining as many seats as possible (which also happens to fit nicely with me, as there at the bottom of my personal list of the big three). So do I vote tactically, giving my mark to Labour in order to prevent a Conservative victory? Certainly I will be fairly upset should Labour lose this seat by a small majority, left thinking that if only I and a few others (for I don't doubt I am not unique in this thinking process) had voted tactically we could have made a difference.

However, that just feels wrong.

Then I come to thinking, what if enough people really are in the position I am, such that they are leaning towards LibDem. Could this be a three horse race here, in which case if the Liberals come close but fall short I will feel probably worse if I've voted tactically, whatever the outcome.

The situation is not helped by the incumbent MP now being an independent (and re-standing as such) having originally taken the seat for the Conservatives. Presumably this mixes up those longer term residents loyalties even more.

I really don't know what I'm going to do tomorrow evening come time to mark an X, but I do know that for once I seem to care.

The other driving force is the Liberal Democrats surprisingly high showing. Not only do they support electoral reform (to try and correct some of the above mentioned vote worthlessness) but I do believe that perhaps the best thing for this country would be a hung parliament where at least some of the differing parties are forced to work together.

The question becomes then, who to vote for. According to Vote Match I should go with the Greens. That isn't going to happen. As I said there is a chance for my vote to count, so I'll be going with something to make it count. It really is down to two choices, and which I go for comes down to whether I think that LibDem vote might make enough of a difference

Prudhoe Castle

After the excitement of a first castle visit in far too long Jan and I had a chance to visit one further north. Having popped up for Easter we had a trip vaguely in mind but ended up going almost by accident on the Sunday, having headed to the Metrocentre only to discover it's about the one day of the year it's closed. Luckily the transport links were still running (cinema open if nothing else) so we could get a bus into Prudhoe just along the Tyne.

The castle itself isn't the most spectacular, but provides an interesting mix of the original and restoration/updating (the bailey is now dominated by a nineteenth century house, though it does blend in nicely). It did feel a little strange to walk down a hill to reach a castle for once, though I suppose its position reflects the proximity to the Tyne and the changing layout of Prudhoe.

As well as the castle we did have the chance to wander into to a christening party at the local pub (the rather bizarely title Dr Syntax). The bus didn't come then, so we had to have a drink in the other pub (the rather more commonly named Fox and Hounds). So all in all not bad

Not my idea in the slightest but once Janet finds something in a leaflet she's always going to talk me into it if she wants to. So it was that we found ourselves upstairs in the Green Dragon (never been upstairs before!) for part of Croydon Film Festival, with Sing-A-Long-A-Wickerman. As it sounds, this is an opportunity to watch the frankly strange UK film The Wickerman, and sing-a-long to the songs. It actually turned out to be a lot more fun than it sounds, or I feared. Still, enough of that silliness for a while.

Promotion Party

A couple of weeks ago now brought another little trip as we went to see Dave Gorman in Brighton (the music playing as I write this is some really random and obscure Buffalo Tom tracks because I searched the blog for mentions of Dave, found a 2007 entry and went looking at other things---this is the sort of reason nothing ever gets written around here). Anyway, on the way to see Dave we went to see a castle...

As we had an entire day to kill and Dave wasn't on till eight in the evening, and it was actually sunny, we decided to head out to Lewes, if for no other reason than there's a castle there. Lewes itself seems a lovely little place, all neatly laid out beneath the chalk cliffs which surround it. Fortunately a sleepy Sunday morning seemed to mean that the many bookshops didn't seem to be open, which at least meant we did get to see the castle!

The castle itself I'll probably write about more at some point. There isn't a great deal left of it but it does have a couple of impressive feature, once your off the High Street and so can find it hidden away. The barbican is quite impressive, though it seems a shame that now the route through its arch (and the Norman gatehouse hidden behind) isn't actually the way into the castle. Standing guard above it is the partly ruined shell keep, still standing proud. It's picturesque more than an example of military might these days but would have been more impressive before the moat was filled in and without the pretty winding modern stairs leading up to it. The view from the top is certainly worth the climb though, the peak of one of the mural towers giving fantastic views over the town below to the cliffs beyond. It also allows you to look out towards the castle's second motte. Lewes is very unusual in that it originally had two mottes connected by a single bailey. It's a shame later encroachment has pretty much hidden the connection, particularly as Brack Mount, as it is known, isn't accessible.

Still, the visit was very pleasant, as is Lewes itself. We've resolved to go back at some point in the summer, probably combined with a visit to the slightly further afield Pevensey.

Dave Gorman (In Brighton)

After our little exploration of Lewes we set out to Brighton. This involved a bus as the trains were typically not running that day. The trip was short and not that bad though, apart from cheeky bus drivers! Brighton is somewhere we've been before, which meant we weren't too bothered about not having much time there. It does however mean that we did know there's an actual Lego store there. Yes, Lego was bought. Strangely I don't think we actually saw much sea though.

As I do like a good pint of Hophead in the Green Dragon we also went in search of its beginnings. This turned out to be something of a mistake as a) It's not a great pub b) There was a man with the strangest hat c) They fed Janet some sort of pear cider on a lethal level, because they don't seem to believe in normal cider. Even though she thankfully only had a half I don't think the poor pixie quite recovered!

After a some food though we did finally make our way to the theatre (finding it earlier on had proved to be a good decision as we wandered up and down the same street three or four times before I realised I was leading us along the wrong street). Dave was good---I don't think this is the funniest of his shows but still laughing out loud. It built speed as it went to a typical Gormanesque reveal at the end (no spoilers to exactly what here).

The wines consumed during the show probably didn't help our stumbling back up the hill to catch the late train back. Arriving back in Croydon I did something I haven't actually done since moving down and got a black cab (though I didn't have to hail it). Does that make me a proper Londoner?