Category Archives: Cats across UK

Something in the Ayr

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An interest in Stenhousemuir Football Club has never been one of life’s priorities to command mass appeal. For a club spending 98% of its history languishing in the lower echelons of the Scottish Leagues it needs to have something more about it than just the dubious glamour of supporting the eternal underdog 🤔 So, how about visits to pastures new, a reason for seeing previously unexplored wilds of Scotland.

As 50% of the Cardiff-based Stenny fan club (yes, there is another like-minded heed case in the local pub), an away match to Ayr United presents one such opportunity. So what has this town on the west coast got to offer, as well as the wild beach above? Miles of golf links it appears, if the train journey down from Glasgow is anything to go by. Long walks spoiled, but at least next to the sea.

A brief walk around the town rewards you with a couple of old bridges, an historic tower, and… well, you begin to see why so many waste so much time on those links.

Once you’ve spent anything up to a whole hour checking out the sites – what else is there to do? Fear not, amongst the standard high street fayre to be found in ‘anywheresville’ there are a few gems of cafes and restaurants worth trying out. For a brief weekend visit the following will provide more than enough reasons for taking that long walk along the esplanade to work off the calories.

Saffy’s Bistro offers a tasty Roast Duck and Romanian Pinot Noir before a Friday night match (you would never have caught me using that sentence before a match years ago).

Come Saturday morning the only place for brunch has to be The Honeybee and the Hare, with a delightfully presented and tasting Bacon & Maple Syrup on Crepes and a side of sourdough toast.

After that 55-minute walk (?) there’s only one true destination: The Drunken Coo Steakhouse serves up a fine dining treat of Beetroot Carpaccio followed by a Venison Tomahawk duo. Which just wouldn’t be complete without a couple of glasses of a delicious Puglia red wine.

A Sunday morning just before that long train journey home needs something wholesome. Cafe 51 have you covered with a Full Scottish Breakfast.

Until we speak again, the people of Ayr have less need for the civic finery when they have plenty of excellent food to tempt the tastebuds. Anyone for that long walk on the esplanade?

For the record, Stenhousemuir also won 1-0, as the triumphant march goes on!

Getting so much better…

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Arriving in Kirkcaldy after 9 hours of travel. The last thing I wanted is to look into a largely derelict alleyway, masquerading as an arcade, supposedly my home for the next couple of days.

I find the one functioning doorway, but then the combination to access the key doesn’t work. Eventually, I get into the apartment, but it hasn’t been serviced. It’s going to be at least an hour before the cleaner arrives (maybe on the next flight in from Romania).

I decide on the positively reviewed Chinese restaurant close by to decamp while my new world is being put right. Only to be called out mid meal because the cleaner doesn’t have a key.

What’s more, my order of Lobster Hong Kong style doesn’t look like what I pointed to as a picture on the menu. It looks unsurprisingly like lobster that needs to be eaten using industrial machinery (okay, so I wasn’t paying attention to corresponding numbers at this point in the story):

After this introduction surely a late evening stroll around Kirkcaldy High Street and Esplanade would settle the mood music. Try it. It’s like you’re living out a scene of Irving Welsh‘s Trainspotting. The body count on the pavement rises with each Wetherspoons or W-like pub you pass.

As for the esplanade – a bland spread of tarmac and concrete has been employed to separate the sea from a seafront that would largely benefit from submergence.

Waking up to a new day, a different song lyric quickly came to mind: “Things can only get better” 🤔😂 The cleaned apartment looks so different, and that arcade offers the dubious welcome of a Couple O‘ Mugs:

Johnno runs the wonderfully ramshackle cafe, dedicated to coffee, local history, and communicating with everyone inside and outside his shop.

How else would I get the low down on my apartment’s prior history as a linen factory, and this arcade of small independents being the second oldest in Scotland!

Things are definitely changing. Away from the High Street and Esplanade, Kirkcaldy has an abundance of beautiful stone cottages and buildings.

The one non-Wetherspoons looking establishment, Krafty’s, is like intruding into someone’s family get together. It could almost tempt me back into craft ale, if I lived here; particularly as it does things with raspberries that I’m sure nature intended:

Even the Chinese restaurant was worthy of a return visit. Now I’m a local celebrated for my previous demolition of a lobster, and able to order the meal I thought I was eating.

Until we speak again, Kirkcaldy is “Getting so much better all the time,” to borrow from the Beatles. And for the record, the purpose of the visit was to watch Stenhousemuir draw 1-1 away to Raith Rovers 🤫

Over there in Barrytown

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“They do things very strange.” Or so the Steely Dan lyrics from the 1974 Pretzel Logic album suggest. My recent post Performative Pizza might be taken to imply a similar message. Or, how about creating a permanent light display in a short road tunnel, Why not? [Photo credit: Rachel Kinchin].

My childhood in Cardiff involved regular visits to Barry Island. After all, it was the local seaside place. Sandy beach, funfair, dubious Butlins Holiday Camp, strange beachside stone arcades with cheap versions of doric columns, soggy chips that even the seagulls shunned.

Why on earth would you bother stopping a mile or two short for the nondescript charmless Barry, or the boring pebble beach of Cold Knap? Then, as know-it-all teenagers we would conjure up our own versions of the reality implied by the Steely Dan lyrics.

Fast forward several decades: questionable development of some wisdom, maybe; or at least, valuable guidance from my new Barry correspondent. Suddenly, the strange things they do in Barry town are more than worthy of investigation.

Goodsheds includes a quirky line of shipping container like boxes arranged to resemble the carriages of an old steam train. Ironically, or maybe not, located close to the 1960’s graveyard for so many British steam engines. Now it’s a mix of interesting little independent shops and eateries. Quite unlike anywhere else, maybe [Photo credit: Yvette Clark].

Beneath the dockside apartments, at ground floor level art of a different kind. A range of pictures of shops and coffee places decorate empty retail premises. At least it gives a superficial impression of bustling business. Who said Barry was just a place of illusion?

One of the few that are open, in prime location looking down the length of the dock, is Craft Republic. A note to its craft ale origins, but as much a reference to a sense of the Independent Republic of Barry!

On the High Street, that isn’t a High Street as you’d recognise it today, a Craft Republic spin-off is MOR Wines – a wine shop that also functions in limited hours as a very good wine bar. This is a High Street of small local community premises that give this place a unique feel, most unlike standard High Street fayre of so many other places.

The local community feel of so much of contemporary Barry also opens its doors to international cuisine, in the form of the Usta Turkish Restaurant. This just happens to be a not-so-hidden gem at the point where Barry island or Cold Knap become an actual decision (but don’t tell anyone; we don’t want to have to book a table because of elevated demand!).

The Sucuk, Babaganoush, Lamb Shish & Mixed Shish are all done to a quality that makes you want to come back, just to be sure it really is as good as you first thought.

That Turkish red wine wasn’t bad either. But save some space for MOR, if it’s still open after your meal. They have a range of reds or whites by the glass to make you embrace the art of falling over later.

Until we speak again, they also do a good line in moonshots and sunsets over in Barry town, or more accurately, Cold Knap (sourced from my Barry correspondent):

Performative pizza

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Going to Italy doesn’t guarantee you an excellent pizza. But going to Barry does…

Yes, it’s that Barry. The more interesting half of the UK comedy show ‘Dickhead & Stacey‘ (the Welsh half, not the English half). For US readers the UK ‘Gavin & Stacey‘ show involves that Gavin/Dickhead you’ll remember as the Brit hosting one of your talk shows… why did you send him back here??

Anyway, I digress. Take one wood-fired pizza oven (as demonstrated above), one genuine Italian family business, local punters who wish to ignore the mediocre hoard of chain pizza joints.

It’s a Friday evening on Barry High Street, hunger building, step up to the plate: Paletta Pizzeria. Without a reservation, we were lucky to bag the one remaining table for two available.

Authenticity is quickly guaranteed as the order of a Salmone pizza (provola, fresh mozzarella, ricotta, black olives, rocket, topped with smoked salmon) and a Maiale pizza (tomato, fresh mozzarella, pepperoni sausage, salami, cooked ham) arrive, with that smoky wood-fired aroma and fresh ingredients.

I’ve had some excellent pizzas in Italy; my all-time favourite used to be the former Casa Lina in Rochester, UK. But Barry on the south Wales coast can claim its spot at the top table of pizza magnificense. An Aperol Spritz & Nero D’Avalo red wine set off the food just right.

Not being a usual dessert type, my companion reminded me that Italians know their stuff beyond just pizza & pasta. So, a Panna Cotta and Tiramisu just had to be sampled, with great coffees, to complete that fully authentic experience.

Until we speak again, don’t let on, as it appears Barry is one of life’s quiet corners of performative excellence. The building hunger was triggered by a couple of hours a few doors away at Mor Barry Island Spirits & Wine Bar. An interesting wine shop with a limited hours bar and occasional special events of the liquid persuasion.

Between us we managed to sample an excellent Cabernet Franc, Pinot Noir, Rioja and Malbec. Simply fabulous.

NOLA: UK-style

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With all the antics of the King of Dumbfuckistan in Washington DC, supported by his Mental Agility’s Gone Away (MAGA) movement, my regular visits to NOLA simply had to stop. So, it was to my great delight on a current trip to (proper) York that I find NOLA has come to me…

With an upstairs restaurant and occasional downstairs jazz venue, the New Orleans essence is there to be fully experienced.

On the menu, right out of Louisiana, we have Jambalaya, Gumbo, Cajun Monkfish, and Creole Dirty Rice…

Creole Brioche Bread Pudding can only be accompanied by the classic Sazerac cocktail…

And yes, a few jazz classics sublimely finish off the perfect vibe…

Until we speak again, the only let down comes when you leave the venue, luxuriating in the many wonderful New Orleans memories… to step into a cold damp January UK night.

Town Planning wins!?

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Yes, I know, that’s a crazy statement in so many ways. I was a town planner many years ago, so please… hear me out. There are rare moments in life when the planning system fails to completely fuck everything up.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not with the intention of doing something good… that hardly aligns with the built-in values system. No, accidents do happen, and sometimes with wonderful consequences.

Take the Salutation pub in tbe university area of Manchester, for example. I was there when it stood alone in acres of cleared derelict land back in the 1970’s. Now, surrounded by modernism on all sides, it’s survival is all the more heroic. Particularly, as it’s largely a student-run enterprize these days…

Then, there’s the issue of what to do with old underground Victorian public toilets. In most cases, at ground level, they are rusting gates and railings secured by a sturdy lock and chain. Left as eyesores to blight the urban landscape, while desperate passers-by go in search of somewhere for a leak.

But, on Great Bridgewater Street in the centre of Manchester something altogether different is happening. For nearly 30 years, The Temple (of Convenience) has been welcoming thirsty punters… and not just for the relief of a good slash!

Until we speak again, don’t just knock the town planners, raise a glass or two to celebrate their occasional mishaps!

It seems my current focus on liquidity knows no end. For those of you wondering if Manchester has anything non-pub related… well, these are my 50th anniversary recollections, so you’ll just have to go and see for yourself?

Nostalgia for liquidity

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Some assets hold more liquidity than others. It appears memory is one. So, it’s 50 years since I got a train from Cardiff to Manchester to do the student thing. 

A time for nostalgia, I thought. Retrace some of the steps that memory serves me… though it also seems ‘progress’ may have erased a few.

Did I really drink my way through 4 years of studies? Is that what many students really do? Relying on muscle memory alone seems to be pointing that way.

Hydes, Holts, Robinsons, et al, occupy much of my mental bandwidth. They refresh the mind to cope with sad reflections on hostelries since closed down.

Manchester is a wonderful city in so many different ways. But there’s little that’s drawing my attention, on this particular journey into nostalgia, that doesn’t have liquidity at its heart.

Until we speak again, it appears my two favourites back in the day… the Jolly Angler in Ancoats and the White Swan in Fallowfield… both succumbed. I guess liquidity didn’t come to their rescue in the final reckoning.

Worcester (without the sauce)

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Unwittingly, 2025 is turning into the ‘without‘ tour. Previously, on Junos View, Dundee was explored without the famous cake. Now, that unpronounceable place (to foreigners and indigenous idiot’s) – Wuss-ter, has been discovered without any of the Lea & Perrins strange brown thing (sauce).

So, here’s the thing…

Once upon a time, across the border, there’s this old thing… called Ingerlund. And, it’s full of these really old things… called cities, and towns, and things. Some are older than others, but Worcester is definitely an older thing.

If you’re coming here, it’s probably going to be a history thing… particularly if you’re into Tudor things.

Or, maybe, it’s a religious thing… with a particularly impressive one of those cathedral things.

Then again, perhaps it’s an imbibing thing… with a good few of those old pub-like things.

But, it’s definitely an eating thing. Though, in my case, the pie and a pint thing was fully booked up… so it had to be an Anatolian thing…

Then again, for me it’s that strange notion of being the largest place in the UK by population I haven’t visited, thing… until now. After all, that’s what Dundee was prior to Worcester.

Until we speak again, it used to be a thing… now it’s done! As for you, it depends on your thing…

Dundee (without the cake)

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Shipbuilding, whaling, jute, journalism, bridges, creative design, and dolphins… what’s not to like about the fabulous city of Dundee.

Well, the whales bit is a stretch these days! But, according to the informative Verdant Works Museum based in an old jute mill, it’s whale oil that led Dundee to be the centre of the world for the jute industry (until India eventually took over).

At the time, Dundee was known as ‘She Town‘ because the women made up the majority of the paid workforce… poorly paid by men, of course. But apparently, they held their own in Victorian drunkenness and misdemeanour statistics.

Then there is journalism… a tradition commemorated in the central square by – of all characters – Desperate Dan & Minnie the Minx…

Most recently, the creative design reinvention has been recognised in the iconic V&A Museum (the first outside of London). An essential element of the building is apparently based on the cliffs of the Scottish coastline…

Then there are those all-important bridges across the River Tay. The sweep of the Tay Railway Bridge has been an emblem of the city back to Victorian times. With the Tay Road Bridge or more recent addition…

Until we speak again, Scotland’s forgotten gem on the east coast has long been on my list. The wait has been well worth it. Even the locals came out to provide a welcome…

Meditative contemplation

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Once upon a time, I travelled often to Norwich for work purposes. As well as sampling some of the previous post’s mention of its history, there was one particular oasis of tranquillity, the Plantation Garden…

Most visitors and a good few locals may be completely unaware of this beautifully quiet corner tucked away behind the Roman Catholic cathedral. The garden was created out of an old chalk quarry in the first half of the 19th century.

For me, it was always a place to quietly prepare or reflect on the consultancy work project of the time. The gentle sound of the ornate fountain greatly enhances the meditative qualities of this amazing space.

Until we speak again, years further on, I can honestly say that all of those precious elements continue to aid contemplation. Staying chilled!