Odd Items In Pubs (Robin Hood's Bay Again)

Many years ago the late and brilliant Douglas Adams and John Lloyd co authored a book called "The Deeper Meaning Of Liff:A Dictionary of Things There Aren't Any Words for Yet-But There Ought to Be" , an updating of their earlier "The Meaning Of Liff" , which takes place names and assigns them to items that there aren't any words for.

While have tea in the rather Excellent Dolphin in Robin Hood's Bay , I saw the item below on the wall opposite me. I completely forgot to ask the landlord what it was , but it is definitely an appliance that would have a place in the afformentioned volumes!!

On The Way To The Longest Day

Sat on the train between Newcastle and Darlington this morning, thinking it's a bit dark , considering we're getting towards summer. After several sunny days , it looks like rain is here for the weekend , still saves having to water the garden.

We must have passed the Spring Equinox this year , and now looking forward to a summer of music festivals , though the awful Evolution Festival in Newcastle doesnt count as it's just about controling the crowd while extracting the maximum amount of cash from them , a bit like Glastonbury has become , just corporate extortion to watch the media's flavour of the moment!!

Then again you could always buy a Dukla Prague Away Kit!!!

A Little More "La Rosa"

A few people have asked where "La Rosa" is. It's on the north side of the river in Whitby on the cliff top , in the same block as the Royal Hotel (where apparently the condition of tenure is that you have taken a Shearing's Bus Tour!) . Anyway If you look from the south side of Whitby , La Rosa is the Yellow Building in the block:


And here's the front with the Lewis Carrol plaque, from here you can see the whalebone arch and look across the river to the ruins of the Abbey. Tres Gothic!!





And another of the sea view suites!!

And A Day In Whitby..

Most of Saturday was spent in Whitby. After the shock on the non roads of Robin Hood's Bay , Whitby was fine. Parked on the West Cliff car park and walked down to the town centre past the carved Whale and the Whalebone Arch.

Whitby is built on slopes towards the, what I assume is, the river Esk , so requires a lot of step negotiation and reasonable fitness , but is well worth it , with it's Gothic ruined abbey , Dracula associations , and Jet (jewellery) and other esoteric shops.

Like Robin Hood's Bay , Whitby is a marvel of ingenuity in the way the houses, shops and pubs are shoe horned together.

Breakfast was at the White Horse and Griffin , lunch at The Magpie Cafe , both absolute five star for food and service.

We visited a few pubs, one of which "The Jolly Sailor" has one of the dodgiest signs I've seen. It's here:

Then there's lots of Chocolate shops such as Justins where the staff were extrememly relaxed despite some customers getting extremely irateover the fact they were having to wait for service. How can you be in a rush when buying chocolate on a Saturday from a shop in Whitby?


We finished with a visit to La Rosa , a superb and fun Victorian Hotel where we'll be going at the end of June. All the rooms are themed and uncluttered by such modernities as televisions and telephones, with features such as wooden baths, black bedding in the "Stoker" suite and steers skulls decorating the bedhead in the Saloon suite!.

A Few Days In Robin Hood's Bay

Just back from a a short break in Robin Hood's Bay. This place is a triumph of inventiveness, and not a place to drive for the faint hearted. There's virtually nowhere to park , nowhere to turn round , some of the "streets" can be spanned with the outstretched arms.

I made the mistake of driving down to drop off our case and ended up with option of driving into the North Sea or manoeuvering the car on the slipway to get back to somewhere safe.

Our cottage was excellent and like almost all buildings in this village is over three storeys reached by a ladder like stairways. This is not a place for anyone who needs a walking aid or wheelchair, that's not plotically incorrect it's just the nature of the village.

Well worth a visit , but park your car on the Bank Top Car Park and walk the rest of the way. You'll be glad you you did given the potential for gridlock in the village itself.

Amazingly there's a plethora of shops , including Muir Head stores which do cash back. There's three excellent pubs , The Bay , The Dolphin and The Laurels , the best food being at the Dolphin , and the atmosphere in The Laurels and the best views in The Bay . Also theres an excellent fish and chip shop of a street near the slipway which is worth visiting.

The cottage we stayed in is Beare Cottage , details of which are here.

This Panic Nation

Now its Swine 'flu' , and the government are going to issue leaflets about how to deal with this pandemic that's going to kill us all. Remember Bird 'flu' ? Didn't think so.

Google Streetview , well that's a burglars and paedophile's gold mine according to your Daily Mail and Talk Radio pundits.

Then there's the credit crunch and the collapse of the economy. Where's the money gone?? Well as it was credit it probably wasnt there in the first place, but most people are in a similar position to what they were in pre credit crunch.

If it's not disease or Google it's terrorists like Al Qaeda , and next week it'll be something else.

Society is a fragile thing built on trust . Usually those who abuse that trust are caught and punished in an appropriate manner.

It's all there to frighten us so the government can pass god knows what laws in "our best interest". The NHS , Police and Army do a good job of looking after us , it's what they're paid for , and despite the odd screw up it generally works.

The government seem to want us to live in a society where we're frightened of our own neighbour like great tracts of the USA. Canada and Switzerland and many other contries have a higher per capita gun ownership than the USA , but they dont hove the same carnage because people trust each other. This Michael Moore cartoon from "Bowling For Columbine" puts it in a nutshell:

Exploding CDs and Championship Unpredictability

This morning I was ripping so CDs and noticed that of them CD2 of "The Tzar, His Library And The Winter Palace" by Al Stewart (home page here)had a couple of cracks at the centre. Thought I best rip this , the drive started up , revved up to 500 rpm , or whatever it is for CDs , then BANG!!! , the thing exploded in the CD drive , leaving me a drive full of fragments!!! Amazingly , I took the thing apart , hoovered it out , emptied out the sparkly bits , put in back , and the thing is now working fine. Though I need to contact Mr Stewart about a replacement CD as it was purchased at one of his gigs and isnt commercially available!!

On the penultimate day of the Championship , due to Preston's atrocious away form , a home defeat by the relegation threatened 'Poo' , our season was finished unless , Cardiff lost at home to mid table Ipswich (with new manager Roy Keane) , , Burnley didnt beat relegation candidates Southampton , and we beat the team with the best defence in the league, a squad full of ex premiership players , on their own turf , that's Birmigham City!!. What I didnt realise was that in Phil Dowd we were against a big club homer referee as well . In the first half he denied us three excellent penaly claims , Jaidi stamping on Mellors leg , Quedrue's deliberate handball in his penalty area. Trevor Francis reckoned they were lucky to have 11 men on the pitch at half time. Well they had 12 !! The second half got worse , Sean St Ledger missed a great chance , the Birmingham scored an excellent goal through Fahey . On 60 sixty minutes Bowyer started a fight with Lee Williamson . Williamson tried to get away but ended up face to face with Bowyer and Dowd red carded both of them , I'm just surprised he sent Bowyer off.

Then with both sides down to 10 men Paul McKenna scored a wonder goal , just as a I was resigned to our season being over . After 88 minutes Ross Wallace took a free kick and scored a goal the equal of McKenna's , I was rubbing my eyes , thinking has in gone in , it had!!!! Wallace pulled off his shirt and Dowd took great delight in red carding Wallace to reduce Preston to 9 men for the four minutes of added time.

All credit to Trevor Francis on Sky, he was extemely objective in his match assessment.

So now I have to go though a nailbiting last day . Am I bothered ?

Not a bit