Category: Norwich

Pan’s People

Norwich is blessed with an embarrassment of busking richness from the totally bonkers (the senior citizen who makes Rod Hull and Emu look positively benign) to the truly mesmerising (the fit young man who gracefully rolls a crystal ball around his nubile body as if it were floating in thin air). The city elders encourage it and street performers need only obtain a free licence and promise not to obstruct the Queen’s highway. Come rain or shine, the catholic mix is a colourful sight most weekday lunchtimes and weekend afternoons but none are more colourful than the Peruvian pan pipers dressed in their vivid threads and feathered finery. I don’t know if their livery is authentic or a Disney pastiche but they certainly brighten up a dull day.

Pan Pipers

Happy Anniversary, Liam

Happy Anniversary, Liam

It’s our wedding anniversary today. Unlike the resurrection of Christ, it’s not a moveable feast. We celebrated our nuptials a day early with a boozy lunch at one of Norwich’s finest eateries followed by a slow pub crawl back to the loft. The food was divine but the delicious highlight was when an elderly Norfolk broad sitting at the adjacent table said loudly to her companions.

‘The same thing happened to me during my colonoscopy.’

wedding rings

Liam slipped his ring on my finger seven years ago. I suppose I ought to have an itch to scratch, but my senses have been so dulled by yesterday’s excess I can’t feel a thing.

I Could Murder a Pint

The Murderers Public HouseNorwich is blessed with a wealth of hostelries to quench the thirst and chew the cud, but few are as famous as the Gardener’s Arms on Timberhill, one of the last family-owned pubs in the city. Partly dating back to the Seventeenth Century, the traditional ale house is stuffed with oldee worldee nooks and crannies, knotty oak beams and exposed brickwork. Its fame derives from an infamous past. The Gardener’s Arms might be the pub’s licensed name but, for years, it’s been known locally as the Murderers. Why? Because after closing time one late night in 1895, Frank Miles battered his estranged wife with a hammer and left poor Mildred for dead. Handy Frankie should have swung for his dastardly deed but the case attracted huge public sympathy and his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. What had the luckless Millie done to deserve such a sticky end? Apparently, she was seen with another fella. Oh, that’s alright then.

Murderer's Pub

Jack the Lab Rat

With Norwich covered in a blanket of low grey cloud, the much anticipated solar eclipse was a bit of a damp squib – more like God just dimmed the lights than a biblical black out. Hardly a spectacle to drive the ignorant to their knees. Still, I did sense a fleeting cold snap. Spooky.

I was up and out early for my appointment at the docs that morning. Following my arterial rebore last summer, the local surgery had invited me to be poked and prodded by five pairs of second year medical students from the University of East Anglia. It was revision time, just before their exams. I was the star turn and was more than happy to do my bit for medical science. The apprentice quacks grappled with inexperience and dodgy equipment and tried to find a pulse in my right leg. It would have been easier to find El Dorado. The poor things hadn’t been told about my condition beforehand but despite the frustration and head scratching, they turned out to be a cheery and dedicated lot. I’m sure they’ll all be a great credit to public health one day.

By the time I’d left the medical centre, the clouds had been replaced by warm bright sunshine. Typical. If God wants to see me on my knees, she’ll have to do better next time.

Here’s one she made earlier…

Solar Eclipse

Chasing the Dragon

In 2013, we had gorillas in our midst. Last year it was the elephant parade and for 2015 it’s Go Go Dragons. Expect to chase the technicolor creatures along the Norwich dragon trail this June. Now call me a party pooper if you want, but I thought the purpose of these campaigns was to highlight the desperate plight of endangered animals. The last time I looked, dragons, unicorns and centaurs, fun and fantastic as they may be, don’t actually exist. I know, shut it, Jack. The kids will love it.

Dragon

Through the Round Window

For weeks now, a flock of starlings has been ebbing and flowing in the skies above Norwich. Every evening, at dusk. I took a few snaps from the loft with the Nokia.

Yes, I know. They don’t really capture the magnificence of the mumurating birds (that’s what they do, apparently). You had to be there. So, here’s something someone made earlier.

Bewitched

The CrucibleMaddermarket Theatre Blue PlaqueA damp and dingy Saturday afternoon saw us at the Maddermarket Theatre for an am-dram matinee courtesy of the Norwich Players. We were Maddermarket virgins and I fancied a peek at the converted Catholic chapel. A striking Sixties’ add-on foyer looked better on the outside and led us to the interior of the church, reconfigured as an Elizabethan playhouse. We took our pews for The Crucible, Arthur Miller’s loud and densely scripted account of the Salem Witch Trials in colonial Massachusetts at the end of the Seventeenth Century. I looked around the audience. Many of them could well have sailed on the Mayflower. By now, we’re used to mingling with the grey herd at Norwich’s cultural events, but the care homes of Norfolk must have been deserted that afternoon. When the over-generous use of dry ice to create the misty ambience of a midnight glade threatened to gas the first four rows, I feared some of the punters might not make it back to the coach.

Maddermarket Theatre

Miller’s now iconic play is a story of rampant fundamentalism, ignorance and the abuse of power. Mass hysteria is whipped up to impose religious orthodoxy and settle old scores. Miller wrote the piece as an allegory of Fifties’ McCarthyism when the U.S. government hounded and blacklisted alleged communists (and socialists and liberals and anyone else who didn’t tow the party line). Sound familiar? Just take a look around the world. The play’s core message is just as relevant today as it was then. The talented thespians did well to deliver the difficult drama with conviction leaving us with the real sense of a menacing world gone completely bonkers. Sadly, the message was all lost on a few. As we queued to leave the auditorium at the end of the performance, an old Norfolk broad turned to her companion and announced:

“Didn’t understand a word of it. Not a word. Marvelous, wasn’t it?’

In the Bleak Midwinter

East Anglia tends to get to best of the weather – it’s often drier and warmer than other parts of these wet little islands. During the bleak winter weeks, when low damp clouds cloak the rest of the nation and drive half the population into Thomas Cook to thumb through the glossy travel brochures, we often enjoy clear skies and bright sunshine. But in the last twenty-four hours, we’ve gone from this:

Sunset Over Norwich

To this…

…as an Arctic snap blew down from the North Pole closing roads, runways, schools and A&E Departments. Brrr…

So today, I thought better of my routine (a stroll to the gym – like I need an excuse to step off the treadmill – followed by a steaming americano and a trawl through the free papers). Instead,  I slipped on my fluffy mules, whacked up the heat and tuned into daytime TV. Let’s hope the weather turns by tomorrow. At my age, a diet of soporific trash on the box could easily become habit forming.

Give Us a Quiche

Beverages are big business these days and popping out for a cuppa has become something of a ritual in the Brennan-Scott household. We like to support local traders over the big chains and we’ve sampled most of the venues dotted about the city. Our favourite indie café is Stranger’s Coffee House on Pottergate but it’s a small shop and getting a table is almost impossible during the weekend rush. So we decided to give the shabby chic ambience of Biddy’s Tea Room on Lower Goat Lane a go. Cluttered vintage is Biddy’s thing. The place is packed wall-to-wall with curios and bric-a-brac from times past. A nightmare to dust, I should imagine. Even though the place was also packed wall-to-wall with punters, we found ourselves in pole position for a vacant Chesterfield. Liam hovered while I enquired after the dishes of the day. The young biddy with the long face behind the counter was not exactly forthcoming. ‘They’re all labelled,’ she barked. They weren’t.

Give Us a Quiche

While I ordered the veggie quiche and Liam paid, a couple sneaked in behind us and nabbed the sofa. Out-flanked, we ended up balancing our lunch precariously on our knees as we sat upright on a lumpy old chaise longue that looked like it had been dragged out of a skip. No easy task for a couple of old biddies like us. The quiche was nice enough but rather spoiled by the side salad swimming in Balsamic vinegar. Liam doesn’t like Balsamic vinegar.

And who were the couple who beat us to the Chesterfield? None other than Chloe Smith, Conservative Member of Parliament for Norwich North, and her beau. Ms Smith is one of the new breed of socially liberal Tories. She supported the same-sex marriage bill. Thank you, Chloe, but what about the bedroom tax and food banks? So far, Ms Smith’s greatest claim to fame is being mauled by veteran broadcaster, Jeremy Paxman, on Newsnight, the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme. The moral of this story? Grab your seat before you order at Biddy’s Tea Room and make sure you do your homework to avoid a right royal stuffing by Paxo (now there’s a disturbing thought).

My God’s Bigger Than Your God

Returning from one of our regular pilgrimages to the Great Metropolis, we took a different route home from Norwich Station. Just for the hell of it. Rather than hurry along the Prince of Wales Road and its grubby hotspots of ill repute, we headed for the Riverside development (all commuter flats and chain restaurants) and wandered across one of the fancy new foot bridges that span the River Wensum. The semi-industrial district on the other side is ripe for redevelopment. What the Luftwaffe hadn’t flattened was finished off by Fifties and Sixties planners. Thankfully, the breeze block and concrete grimness is moderated by a sprinkling of treasures, including the Dragon Hall, a stunning medieval trading hall on Kings Street and one of The ‘Norwich Twelve’ erections of distinction.

As we pushed up St Julian’s Alley (pun intended) we stumbled across St Julian’s Church, a tiny shrine now dedicated to Julian of Norwich. No, this Julian wasn’t a fella, but a lady named after the eponymous saint. She was a religious recluse who lived in a cell propped up against the wall of the building, a kind of hermit’s lean-to. It’s no surprise that prayful seclusion was the lifestyle of choice for many folk during the poxy ages.

The Lady Julian has quite a claim to fame. She penned the first ever book known to have been written in English by a woman. Fancy. She wrote her tome, ‘Revelations of Divine Love’, in 1395 after experiencing intense visions of Christ during an illness that nearly saw her knocking at the Pearly Gates. Unlike many of her contemporaries (and ours), Julian talked of love, hope and forgiveness rather than duty, sin and punishment. Regular readers will know that I’m not remotely religious, but I reckon we could do with a bit more of Julian’s kind of divine message. So much better than the my-God’s-bigger-than-your-God world in which we still live.

Julian's Shrine