Norwich Pride Comes of Age

The fine city of Norwich was draped in lively colours under gin-clear skies for the 18th annual Pride event – the biggest and best ever – with thousands of rainbow folk hitting the streets; free to be who they are. Everyone welcome, regardless. Being a bit long in the tooth, our prancing days are way behind us, so we watched the joy from the comfort of a shady table and a glass or two of chilled white.

Of the many stories that played out before us, two in particular tugged at the heart strings. The first was an elderly lady with a walking stick who we assumed to be trans. She hobbled through the happy crowd – free for a day, at least. What a tale she must have to tell. The second was an old fella, also steadied by a walking stick, shuffling to the beat of Lady Gaga with tears in his eyes. We had tears in ours too. As the Lord Mayor of Norwich set off the parade with a rousing speech from City Hall, we thought, haven’t we come far?

Then, the next day, we awoke to the horror of a religious nutter driving a car into the crowd at Berlin Pride, killing one and seriously injuring many others. Clearly, we haven’t come far enough. Today is Brighton Pride, the UK’s biggest. Everything is crossed.

But back to the joy – marchers gathering at City Hall.

Image courtesy of the Forum. For even more joyful images from the day, check out Norwich Pride’s Faceache page,

Family Values

An old pal of over four decades has just sold her gorgeous Victorian house in a leafy corner of old London Town. Down the years, hot gossip and saucy nudge-nudge, wink-wink titbits in her pretty city garden had become a firm and fabulous fixture in our social calendar – washed down with way too much fancy fizz. And so came the finale, our last performance. I shall miss it.

For the girl from the Welsh valleys who became quite the leading lady in high-end fashion, clearing out the accumulated designer wear and wares of a life in the fast lane was daunting – what to keep, what to flog, what to chuck – from Conran chairs (keep) and Vivienne Westwood (flog) to back issues of glossy magazines (chuck).

As we travelled down the memory lanes of many good times past, we spotted a 1994 dog-eared edition of Vanity Fair in the chuck pile with the smarmy face of Don the Con splashed all over the front cover with his unfortunate second wife, Marla Maples, and the headline ‘Trump Family Values’. The irony was not lost. Our garden party hostess is moving back to Wales to keep a closer eye on her mother. That’s what I call ‘family values’.

Sun, Fun and the Footie

We’ve finally recovered from our latest Hellenic odyssey to pretty Paxos and the Venetian glory of Corfu Old Town. While old Blighty baked under cloudless skies, we basked in Greek heat around a warm pool topped off by ouzo-fuelled steamy evenings of mirth and hot gossip with our travel companions. Thank you, you know who you are. A memory to savour was watching England beat Norway at the footie. We joined the rowdy crowd of many nations squeezed into cafés along the Liston, Corfu’s iconic Parisian-inspired arcade. Business was brisk as the drinks kept clinking and the tills kept ringing. Let’s not dwell on England’s later defeat by Argentina.

As for the rest, I’ll let the snaps do the talking…

Thanks to ‘Linda’ our official royal photographer for most of the pics.

Given the scorcher at home, I fretted that our little plot might wilt in the relentless heat. I needn’t have worried. Our neighbour did a splendid job with the watering can. Thank you!

Another Greek Intermission

I’m off-air as we perk our pansies on pretty Paxos. While we’re away tanning our wrinkly old hides, here’s a random selection of images that caught my eye. As usual, it’s an eclectic mix of snaps.

First up – a twinkly Christmas 2025.

Then we have our April anniversary celebrations and red wedding tulips.

Our room for all seasons.

And finally, the utterly bonkers.

Creatures of Habit

I think it must be an age thing, but these days, we’ve become creatures of habit. When we stumble on something or somewhere we like, we tend to stick with it. For us, familiarity breeds comfort, not contempt. So once again we’re jetting off to the gorgeous Greek island of Paxos, followed by a couple of days re-sampling the Venetian delights of Corfu Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Well, I say ‘jetting’, but it’s actually car, plane, taxi, ferry, then taxi again. This trip, we’re taking a couple of village people along for the ride. They like a drink too. Yamas!

Putting on the Glitz!

It was an immense privilege to be invited to see ‘Glitz’, the 2026 graduation gig from D16 Performing Arts College at the Gorleston Pavilion Theatre. The show was simply breathtaking. The uber-gifted cast – many of whom are destined for greater things – put on the glitz with infectious joy and energy. As the amazing Irene Cara sang in Fame, the dark and broody 1980 Alan Parker teen musical…

Fame! I’m gonna live forever, I’m gonna learn how to fly. High!

And fly high they did. Click the Faceache link below to get a tantalising glimpse…

Glitz Graduation Show

Image Courtesy of D16

As an ensemble piece, it would be unfair to single any one stellar performance, except for a special mention for our very own young apprentice starlet, Alice Peck (top left in the picture). Way to go, Alice! The standing ovation at the end of the show was instant and richly deserved. Britain really does have loads of talent.

Doing Time in Lancaster

The final pitstop of our Victoria Wood jolly was in Lancaster, the county town of Lancashire. Our lodgings for the night were at the historic 17th-century Sun Hotel and Bar with fancy rooms. Like my creaking bones, the creaking floorboards gave its age away.

Founded as a Roman fort in the 1st century CE, the handsome city, stuffed with listed buildings, is wrapped around the medieval castle built on the Roman roots. For us, the castle – until recently a prison – was the main event. Unfortunately, many of the best bits were ‘guided tour only’. Still, an old cell block which currently hosts the Lancashire Police Museum was open to casual callers – a quick frisk by a burly screw* with a bulldog face not required. And instead of ‘porridge’ at His Majesty’s pleasure, it was coffee and cake in the sunny castle courtyard afterwards, then back to our digs for some excellent pub grub washed down with decent vino. Cheers!

*’Screw’ is slang for a prison guard. The term is thought to originate from the 19th century, when prison life was really grim. Back then, inmates were forced to perform gruelling and utterly pointless hard labour by turning a hand-crank for hours on end. Depending on their mood, guards could tighten or loosen the screw on the machine to make the wheel harder or easier to turn. Hence the possible origin of the word still used today.

Into Victoria Wood – Part Two

Picture it: half-term in Bowness-on-Windermere during a heatwave – over-busy and over-hot. Bowness is a charming little town but suffers from being the gateway to England’s largest lake, drawing crowds from everywhere. We dropped off our bags at our lodgings – the pretty inn called Churchills – and headed down to the water for a gander. The foreshore was drowning in day trippers, and RAF fighters thundered low over the lake. For a moment we thought mad Vlad had finally lost the plot. Eventually we happened upon a lakeside watering hole to cool down and watch the dogfights.

Still, we weren’t in Bowness for the surly bar staff and so-so service. It was ‘Fourteen Again’ we came to see, Tom MacRae’s brand-new musical based around the songs of the late, great Victoria Wood. As we took our seats at the intimate, recently renamed Victoria Wood Theatre, expectations were sky high. Were they met? Oh yes, met and then some.

The time-travelling tale of friendship, endurance, regret, redemption and rebirth is a very human tragi-comedy centred around the life and times of old besties, Peggy and Lou, which gift-wraps Victoria Wood’s witty ditties in pathos and warmth. Sally Ann Triplett (as Peggy) and Ria Jones (as Lou) are simply superb. There were tears all round.

If only I was fourteen again.  

Into Victoria Wood – Part One

The amazing comedy genius that was Victoria Wood died in 2016. It was a sad day. As I wrote at the time, ‘she kept me laughing through four decades’. And now through the fifth and heading for the sixth, I’m still laughing. When we heard that Tom MacRae, the brilliant writer behind the hugely successful stage musical Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, had written a story around some of Victoria Wood’s most iconic songs, I would have sold my soul to the Devil for a ticket.

Thankfully, Satan will have to wait a while longer to have his wicked way with me as we managed to pick up a couple of tickets the very moment they went on sale. The only slight bum note was that the show was debuting not in London’s glittering West End – not even in the not-so-glittering off-West End – but at The Victoria Wood Theatre, recently renamed in her honour. And where is this eponymous venue? Bowness-on-Windermere in the Lake District. So as it’s about 210 miles north as the crow flies, we decided to make a meal of it.

First up was a pitstop in London, staying in steamy King’s Cross on the hottest day of the year. This once sleazy part of town – all street walkers, drunks, druggies and down-and-outs – has been transformed in recent years and is now home to posh shops, fancy bars, over-priced eateries and the huge British Library. We thought we might sleep over at the glorious St Pancras Hotel but with rooms from 500 quid a night, we settled on a budget bed in Premier Inn instead.

We also thought we might enjoy a sherry or two in the local gay pub we used to frequent back in the day, assuming, like the area, it had been tarted up. But when we noticed it was hosting the ‘Big Bi Fun Club’ in the basement, we decided to wave goodbye to the good Bi’s. Some sleazy things never change, I’m delighted to say.

Next stop on the line, Bowness…

Riding the Mail Rail

Whenever we’re in London for our regular rendezvous with nearest and dearest, we try to fit in something a little different. And what could be more different than riding the Mail Rail? Back in the day when people still wrote actual letters, traffic gridlock in the smoky city was holding up the King’s mail. It just wasn’t on. The solution? Build a mini railway beneath the congested streets. From 1927, the underground mail train ran from Paddington in the west to Whitechapel in the east before hitting the buffers in 2003.

But that wasn’t the end of the line. Some bright spark at Royal Mail saw an opportunity to make a few bob, and Mail Rail opened in 2017 as a visitor attraction. We thought we’d give it a whirl. As we rattled along the narrow tunnel in the toy town choo-choo, the old subterranean world of the postie was revealed with fascinating audio-visual displays projected onto the curved walls of long-abandoned platforms. Then, quite suddenly, we shuddered to a halt and were plunged into total darkness. ‘Attention! Attention! Power cut!’ bellowed a fella with a Cockney accent over the tannoy. Liam looked worried. ‘Only joking!’ It’s not a trip for the claustrophobic – or the long-legged.

Our final stop was a tour of the nearby Postal Museum. Apparently, mail first became a thing for that old letch and all-round shit, Henry VIII, as a kinda medieval pony express for royal dispatches. No Truth Social back then. The stables used by all the King’s horses were called ‘posts’ – hence the origin of the word we use today. Who knew?

Although I’m way too long in the tooth to have been a fan of Postman Pat, that evergreen kiddies cartoon from the eighties, the entire experience brought out the inner child (or geek) in me.

As is my wont, I bought not one but two fridge magnets in the gift shop. Liam shrugged and sighed, as usual. And then I picked up something to read around the pool for our forthcoming Greek odyssey – assuming it’s not buggered up by you know who’s current war.