Category: Norwich

A Date with Anna Karenina

Norwich’s rich cultural repertoire has Liam drooling like a rabid dog. He’s joined the club at the Theatre Royal and has planned an entire programme of cultural festivities to drag me along to. I daren’t admit that I’d rather catch Coronation Street as the cold nights approach. Our latest date was with Anna Karenina at Cinema City. The mini-multiplex is housed in the Suckling’s House and Stuart Hall, a Grade I listed complex spanning a 14th Century merchant’s house and an early twentieth century public hall. Much of the ground floor is occupied by a trendy bar with an ancient vaulted oak ceiling and a fancy restaurant extending into a medieval courtyard. It feels like a swanky café with a cinema attached rather than the other way round. We took our deep, comfy seats and witnessed a parade of boozy bacchanalian folk file past with bottles of white rattling away in their ice buckets. Anna was a lavish hostess – exquisitely staged, sumptuously filmed, superbly acted and evocatively scored. Loyalty, betrayal and suffocating social convention were magically set against the sweeping steppe. Keira Knightley’s impossibly long bedecked neck stole the show. Liam was mesmerised. I was strangely unmoved. As the end credits rolled, the audience tottered out. Many were clearly pie-eyed and not in control of their faculties. Who says the middle classes don’t have a drink problem?

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Getting the Abbey Habit

Norwich?!

Still Waters Run Deep

Still Waters Run Deep

Norwich’s river is called the Wensum. The name derives from the Old English adjective wandsum or wendsum, meaning ‘winding’. It’s aptly titled. The river caresses like a feather boa, arching around the town and providing ample opportunities for boozy afternoons in riverside inns when the weather’s right. So far, the weather’s been right for much of the time. The Wensum is a lazy river with a slow flow. Apparently, this is caused by a large number of redundant upstream water mills. Plans are afoot to modify the mills to enable the river to behave more naturally. In the meantime, the idle waters are a fertile breeding ground for mosquitoes. We’re well acquainted with the sipping beasts of Anatolia. After four itchy years, our tough old hides eventually developed a natural immunity to their veracious appetites. Their slower, more timid English cousins don’t stand a bug in hell’s chance with these old pros. Top up, anyone?

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We’re Having a Gay Old Time

We threw caution to the wind and have a gay old night in old Norwich Town. We are blessed with three bone fide out-and-proud gay bars and one club. Who’d have thought? The Castle Public House was our inn of choice, a popular haunt perched unglamorously on the corner of a ring-road roundabout just outside the city centre. We knew we’d arrived when we spotted their open top Big Gay Bus parked up outside. It’s used to frighten the farmers as it cruises the length and breadth of the county spreading the word. Not quite Priscilla, Queen of the Desert but you get the picture. The bar was a pleasant surprise. We were expecting tired, tatty and torn. We got camp, colourful and clean. The clientele was a manic mix of trendy young things, most of them squeezed into skinny jeans and Primark plimsolls. Metrosexual girls and boys mingled amiably, gossiping and giggling over the latest must-sup alcopop being flogged by the multi-nationals.

We popped across the pretty garden and crept into the glass-fronted club out the back. It was like stepping into a village hall on acid. We didn’t last long. The two old codgers quickly decided they were way too old for the thump, thump, thump and returned to the snug to finish their halves of mild. After a while observing the Norwich queens in their natural habitat, Liam suggested we leave the children to their play and stumble back home for a welcome cup of cocoa. As we strolled past the cathedral, Liam noticed that my ancient legs (the ones that had been given me so much gyp of late) were firing on all pistons. He was right. No pain whatsoever. Remarkable. Sightly sozzled and suspecting divine intervention, Liam looked up at the dreaming spire and spoke to his maker. “Praise the Lord!” he slurred. “It’s a miracle.” Indeed. He’ll be feeding the five thousand next.

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Painting the Town Pink

The Dorothy Dollar and Pink Pound

Hello Ducky

The last public holiday before Christmas brought the crowds to the banks of the Wensum to cheer on the Grand Norwich Duck Race. It was a bit of a plucky ducky frolic for charity and, as far as we could make out, it’s a friendly rival to the much grander Great Norwich Duck Race held in July. A £2 raffle ticket bought us a bright plastic contender and the chance to pick up a prize. The Sheriff of Norwich loudly heralded the release of the ducks which were chomping at the bit behind a mini-boom. I thought sheriffs were employed to chase outlaws around the Wild West and Sherwood Forest, but I digress. The gentle Wensum would hardly qualify as a white water ride so most of the rubber ducks floated lamely downstream while others became trapped in the dripping summer foliage. Neither Daffy, Donald or Daisy nor Huey, Dewey or Louis seemed much bothered by all the fuss as they huddled together for comfort. The daft occasion was fun for all the family and totally quackers. Later the same evening Liam gazed out of the window and, quite by chance, spotted three dragged-up men hobbling down the street in high heels, shock frocks and wild wigs. This is Norwich, city of the tacky, wacky and the wonderful.

The images were taken with my new smart-arse smart phone so they’re not very good (more of the smarty pants later), but you’ll get the drift.

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The Birds

The Birds

Our little quarter of old Norwich is like a retirement village, jam-packed with sheltered housing schemes – from modern red brick to post-industrial grand. We’re surrounded by the old folk of Norfolk, placing us in pole position for the next vacancy. It reminds me of our fright nights in off-season Yalıkavak when we first dipped our toes in Turkish waters. The difference is that round here there are no randy cats or baying dogs to keep us from our slumber.

Our silent nights are a world away from the Saturday night fever that unfolds just a few streets along. Lazy days are regularly disturbed by the street-wise pigeons who coo, poo and screw on the narrow ledges of the buildings around us. The bonking birds cleverly confound the spikes and nets intended to keep them from their lofty urban roosts and happily bestow their blessings on the passers-by below. There’s good luck splattered everywhere. It’s a scene from Hitchcock’s The Birds.

We only have one immediate neighbour. We’ve nodded hello in typically British reticent style. She must be very learned and well-read judging by the constant stream of Amazon deliveries. I must butter her up and generate more commission through my website, it could be a nice little earner. As a fellow blogger and author once remarked “Jack, you’re such a tart, on so many levels.” If the cap fits.

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Homes Sweet Homes

Homes Sweet Homes

The other day, my nephew and namesake asked me how many times I’d moved digs down the long, long years. I had to trawl the deepest recesses of my scatter brain to dredge up faded memories of homes sweet homes, tallying first with my fat fingers, then with my stunted toes. My digital sum revealed that our 17th century weaver’s gaff in Norwich is also my 17th home. It has a certain poetic ring to it don’t you think? Over the years, I’ve done home and away, foreign and familiar, new and old. Until now, I’d never done artisan (that’s homes not men, by the way). I’d never done public house either but it turns out that our new croft was converted into a pub in 1760. The first licensee was a certain Samuel Westall. Sam was a worsted weaver by trade but must have thought pulling pints and spinning yarns would be more profitable than downing pints and spinning yarn. Perhaps Sam saw the writing on the wall (though he probably couldn’t read what he saw) and decided to turn in his wheel before Jenny started her spinning. The pub was called the Kings Head and served up real ale to the drunks of Norwich for over 170 years until its sad demise in 1932. Somehow, I always knew I’d end up on my back in a bar.

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Off With Their Heads!

‘Allo, ‘Allo, Norwich

We’re Lovin’ It

The pictures are hooked, the classic Habitat vases are strategically placed in medieval nooks, the beds are nattily dressed and the gay scatter cushions have been scattered gaily. Our Gallic Lady of the House gazed down on us enigmatically as we popped the cork on the French fizz and toasted to a job well done. The ex-semigrey repats are in and we’re sorted. Liam’s loving the kitchen and loving my Radio gaga. We’re wallowing like proverbial pigs. We’ve finally sussed the complex recycling palavar. The slightest infringement of the rules and the feeble boys with their feeble wrists won’t take the crap. It wasn’t like this with my little plastic save-the-world box in Walthamstow and it certainly ain’t Turkey.

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Jack on Future Radio

I managed to stumble through the interview on Future Radio without too many pregnant pauses or tripping over too many ums and aahs. MC Di was warm and engaging and witty Nick was a gently inquisitive host. Adding to the splendid blend was roving reporter Nick C, a young man reading history at Cambridge, no less. Just before the show, Di offered me an ice cream to calm me down and warm me up. I had a dribble of chocolate on my chin throughout the interview. No one mentioned it. Liam waited in the car park and recorded the gig, balancing his laptop on one knee as he jammed it up against the car speaker. He needn’t have bothered. Di provided me with a link to the podcast.

I’ve added my star turn to my Jack Scott Website. Click here or on the radio image to have a listen. The future’s bright, the future’s perking pink.

If you prefer, you can listen to the entire show on Future Radio’s website (click on Pride Live 06 08 12).

I chose Mika’s ‘We Are Golden’ for my playlist of one. The boy’s a genius. The track speaks to me of youthful hope and independence, and Blighty’s golden haul at the Olympics.

Pride Live!

I’m nervous. I got an email from DJ Di Cunningham inviting me along to Future Radio to be a guest on Pride Live!  Future Radio is a community station broadcasting on 107.8FM to the good citizens of Norwich. Their mission statement is:

We promote social inclusion in its broadest sense, freedom of expression and the dissemination of information for the benefit of our local and wider communities. We use music of all genres to promote racial and social harmony, embrace social, cultural and economic diversity and promote tolerance, understanding and democracy.

You can’t argue with that.

I’m on a 6.30pm this afternoon. Face for radio? Certainly. What am I going to say? No idea. Triumph or flop? I’ll tell you later. Meanwhile, you can catch the show online.

Size Really Matters

Conversation on BBC Look East a few minutes ago:

Commentator: “What does it take to be a great cox?”

Expert: “Size really matters.”

Amen to that.