Friday, June 18, 2004
Things that irritate about this city - 2
Excellent! Another boutique sandwich shop. Just what this street needs.
Thursday, June 17, 2004
A day in Whitstable
After coming back from Tallinn we went to Whitstable. Well, why not? Both places were equally good. There’s a cheap-flight city-break culture these days, which I suppose by accident I’m a part of, although I’ve been doing this kind of thing for years. (Any time off work of more than a weekend should be viewed as an opportunity to go somewhere else.) (Oh, and sign up to one of the major causes of environment pollution and greenhouse gas emission, eh? Yeah, guilty, but not as much as some major companies and countries I could mention, so maybe we should go after them instead of ourselves shouldering the burden of liberal guilt.)
Anyway, I can’t understand how people can jet off to some European city at the drop of a hat but neglect the attractions of their own country. England – even England, not even counting Scotland and Wales – contains enough within it to sustain a life time of day trips and long weekends. In the summer, outside the football season, I do my best to get out of London.
I’ve begun to love Kent, and particularly the North Kent coast, a beautiful, bleak place. This is not the version of Kent people think of. No garden of England here. It’s more interesting than that. Gillingham, for example, where football takes me once a year, is a Northern, working class town that just happens to be in the South East. And how can any county be considered posh when it has Margate in it?
Walking down Whitstable streets I felt a rare, dull ache of nostalgia. Suddenly I missed my childhood and I wanted it back. I felt that pull in my stomach for something I could never have again. I remembered these streets, even though I’d never been here. Once, almost beyond recall now, everywhere was like this. Streets were full of small, independent, proper shops. There wasn’t a chain to be seen. The sweet shop had its jars in the windows. All was well here.
We walked around the harbour, up the hill to Tankerton Slopes and then back down by the seashore again along the walkway called, simply and perfectly, The Street. It was a glorious day. The sky was full blue. The view by the beacon over the sea and across to Sheppey was clear and terrific. Walking, I was whizzed from nostalgia for someone’s past to a vision of a future. I sized up the shore front houses, forming new retirement plans. I loved the beach huts, and I could see myself buying one, coming down here on football free weekends and idling peaceful hours away. (I looked into the idea of beach huts on return home, and it seems everyone else wants one too; they cost more than a terraced house in the town I grew up in.) It must have hit me bad, because I had a temporary wobble where I could see the point of reproducing. I imagined bringing my children here. I imagined my grown up children visiting me in retirement. Don’t worry. It didn’t last.
I love places that sell seafood, even though I don’t like seafood. I like to stroll around fish markets. Pebble beaches as well! I imagine that suited the Victorians just right. Not too much emphasis on enjoying yourself there.
We walked long by the sea under a sun which eventually grew cruel, which meant it was time to hit the pubs. Now here was something interesting. Whitstable had seemed cute, picturesque, genteel. Nic says she saw some property show (I flee from them) in which Whitstable was described as ‘Islington-on-Sea’. How sloppy, but I suppose that imprecision may conceal some unintended truth. Islington is, of course, not quite the place people imagine it to be. Sure, there’s all the posho bits, but there are estates and real poverty while the Highbury Corner end of town qualifies for the euphemism ‘lively’. So in Whitstable. This was a place where I feared the pubs would be posh. What on earth is the point of a snooty pub? Not a bit of it. I went into many pubs, almost all of them selling good, local Shepherd Neame beers, and they were full of ordinary people. Hey, I recognised these people. They were Cockneys.
One pub was particularly homely. A drunken mother was having a incoherent row with her adult son. I come from a town which at times resembles the wild west, so I recognised this. As I went to the gents they had called the police to stop the drunken mother climbing into her car. As I came back they were all friends again, getting another round in. When we left one of them turned to us.
“We haven’t scared you off already, have we?”
“No mate, we were going anyway.”
Anyway, I can’t understand how people can jet off to some European city at the drop of a hat but neglect the attractions of their own country. England – even England, not even counting Scotland and Wales – contains enough within it to sustain a life time of day trips and long weekends. In the summer, outside the football season, I do my best to get out of London.
I’ve begun to love Kent, and particularly the North Kent coast, a beautiful, bleak place. This is not the version of Kent people think of. No garden of England here. It’s more interesting than that. Gillingham, for example, where football takes me once a year, is a Northern, working class town that just happens to be in the South East. And how can any county be considered posh when it has Margate in it?
Walking down Whitstable streets I felt a rare, dull ache of nostalgia. Suddenly I missed my childhood and I wanted it back. I felt that pull in my stomach for something I could never have again. I remembered these streets, even though I’d never been here. Once, almost beyond recall now, everywhere was like this. Streets were full of small, independent, proper shops. There wasn’t a chain to be seen. The sweet shop had its jars in the windows. All was well here.
We walked around the harbour, up the hill to Tankerton Slopes and then back down by the seashore again along the walkway called, simply and perfectly, The Street. It was a glorious day. The sky was full blue. The view by the beacon over the sea and across to Sheppey was clear and terrific. Walking, I was whizzed from nostalgia for someone’s past to a vision of a future. I sized up the shore front houses, forming new retirement plans. I loved the beach huts, and I could see myself buying one, coming down here on football free weekends and idling peaceful hours away. (I looked into the idea of beach huts on return home, and it seems everyone else wants one too; they cost more than a terraced house in the town I grew up in.) It must have hit me bad, because I had a temporary wobble where I could see the point of reproducing. I imagined bringing my children here. I imagined my grown up children visiting me in retirement. Don’t worry. It didn’t last.
I love places that sell seafood, even though I don’t like seafood. I like to stroll around fish markets. Pebble beaches as well! I imagine that suited the Victorians just right. Not too much emphasis on enjoying yourself there.
We walked long by the sea under a sun which eventually grew cruel, which meant it was time to hit the pubs. Now here was something interesting. Whitstable had seemed cute, picturesque, genteel. Nic says she saw some property show (I flee from them) in which Whitstable was described as ‘Islington-on-Sea’. How sloppy, but I suppose that imprecision may conceal some unintended truth. Islington is, of course, not quite the place people imagine it to be. Sure, there’s all the posho bits, but there are estates and real poverty while the Highbury Corner end of town qualifies for the euphemism ‘lively’. So in Whitstable. This was a place where I feared the pubs would be posh. What on earth is the point of a snooty pub? Not a bit of it. I went into many pubs, almost all of them selling good, local Shepherd Neame beers, and they were full of ordinary people. Hey, I recognised these people. They were Cockneys.
One pub was particularly homely. A drunken mother was having a incoherent row with her adult son. I come from a town which at times resembles the wild west, so I recognised this. As I went to the gents they had called the police to stop the drunken mother climbing into her car. As I came back they were all friends again, getting another round in. When we left one of them turned to us.
“We haven’t scared you off already, have we?”
“No mate, we were going anyway.”
Things that irritate about this city - 1
Someone emerging from a tube station walks slowly and obstructively. They think they can walk and read a text message at the same time. They can't.
Monday, June 14, 2004
My trip to Lewes, Saturday 12 June 2004
Proceeded as follows:
Royal Oak, Station Road - Harvey's best
White Star, Lansdown Place - Deuchar's
King's Head, Priory Street - Harvey's best
Swan, Soutover High Street - Harvey's light mild and an excellent lunch in a jolly nice pub
Meridian, Western Road - Shepherd Neame best
Black Horse, Western Road - closed, miserable gits
Elephant and Castle, White Hill - Harvey's best
Lewes Arms, Mount Place - Greene King mild
Lamb, Fisher Street - St Austell's Tribute
Brewer's Arms, High Street - can't remember (pint)
Snowdrop, South Street - Harvey's but alas no dinner because they brought the wrong food and tried to blame us, the snooty, middle-class, know-nothing-about-running-pubs amateurs
Dorset Arms, Malling Street - Harvey's light mild, good food, and the right attitude
Gardener's Arms, Cliffe High Street - Dark Star Dark Star
White Star, again - King and Barnes Sussex bitter
Wetherspoon's upstairs at Victoria station - can't remember x 2
And so to bed.
Royal Oak, Station Road - Harvey's best
White Star, Lansdown Place - Deuchar's
King's Head, Priory Street - Harvey's best
Swan, Soutover High Street - Harvey's light mild and an excellent lunch in a jolly nice pub
Meridian, Western Road - Shepherd Neame best
Black Horse, Western Road - closed, miserable gits
Elephant and Castle, White Hill - Harvey's best
Lewes Arms, Mount Place - Greene King mild
Lamb, Fisher Street - St Austell's Tribute
Brewer's Arms, High Street - can't remember (pint)
Snowdrop, South Street - Harvey's but alas no dinner because they brought the wrong food and tried to blame us, the snooty, middle-class, know-nothing-about-running-pubs amateurs
Dorset Arms, Malling Street - Harvey's light mild, good food, and the right attitude
Gardener's Arms, Cliffe High Street - Dark Star Dark Star
White Star, again - King and Barnes Sussex bitter
Wetherspoon's upstairs at Victoria station - can't remember x 2
And so to bed.
What I did on my holidays
Tallinn was lovely: quiet and sunny. It was a nice place to walk around and do not very much in particular, a good place to relax, look at bright, colourful buildings and climb up walls and towers. I managed to fuck up my knee in doing so, and left Tallinn with a limp, but this did not detract. I am unused to exertion.
There's this curious daily routine where cruise ship passengers are unloaded in the morning, take a stroll, fill up the main square and are back on board being entertained en route to some other Baltic city by the evening of the same day. All these grey haired elasticated waisted folk made me feel quite young.
It's probably fair to say that no one ever went there for the food, but we found good beer. You can always find good beer if you try. A brew pub, imitating a German beer hall, kept us supplied with large measures of dunkle. At this time of year, it stays light until way past UK pub-closing time, so there's no excuse not to drink into the night.
The people there seem to have a certain gruffness, which suits me fine. Having been to a few places in Eastern Europe and one or two in Scandinavia, it did seem halfway between: part of Eastern Europe geographically, until recently not even a place on a map a different colour to the Soviet Union, but always facing north across to Finland.
Interestingly, when you tell people you are going to Tallinn, everyone thinks it is in Latvia.
(And your American spell-checker doesn't even recognise the name...)
There's this curious daily routine where cruise ship passengers are unloaded in the morning, take a stroll, fill up the main square and are back on board being entertained en route to some other Baltic city by the evening of the same day. All these grey haired elasticated waisted folk made me feel quite young.
It's probably fair to say that no one ever went there for the food, but we found good beer. You can always find good beer if you try. A brew pub, imitating a German beer hall, kept us supplied with large measures of dunkle. At this time of year, it stays light until way past UK pub-closing time, so there's no excuse not to drink into the night.
The people there seem to have a certain gruffness, which suits me fine. Having been to a few places in Eastern Europe and one or two in Scandinavia, it did seem halfway between: part of Eastern Europe geographically, until recently not even a place on a map a different colour to the Soviet Union, but always facing north across to Finland.
Interestingly, when you tell people you are going to Tallinn, everyone thinks it is in Latvia.
(And your American spell-checker doesn't even recognise the name...)
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