Tag Archives: photography

All that Jazz!

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So, my lovely reader, you now know Berlin has a penchant for the Christmas Market… or Weihnachten Markt, as the locals say. Is that all you think I spent my precious time doing? Drinking Glugwein (inc. a Weiss beer version), eating Bratwurst and that lovely smoked salmon?

So, the sound of Berlin has always had that underground bohemian vibe (or perhaps that’s just me). Think the Sally Bowles character in Cabaret (or perhaps that’s just me). The challenge… should I accept it (or perhaps that’s… forget that bit)… is to see if the modern Berlin lives up to its historic reputation.

First stop… A-Trane. Well, I’ve only just arrived a few hours ago. How’s a guy supposed to hit the ‘bohemia’ ground running (or, perhaps that’s just me)?

Perhaps not underground, exactly. But, the overground version provided a great intro to the local jazz scene with Andreas Schmidt and friends doing a regular Monday night slot. Something of the avant garde style to welcome me to the sound of Berlin.

Getting genuinely down underground you need to shift along the alphabet a space. B-Flat, is a club in the Hackescher Markt area. An unassuming entrance and staircase leads you into more traditional jazz territory… subterranean (or perhaps that’s just me).

Nothing traditional about KRiSPER, an electric jazz ensemble. Playing just their own compositions, with superb musicianship. There was a definite wow factor to the atmospheric style of their music (or perhaps that’s just me).

Then, keeping that overground-underground feel… The Hat Club feels like it belongs in that Cabaret-era of 1930’s kind of thing, competing with the sound of trains overhead (or perhaps that’s just me)…

It’s a nightly jam session in one of those rare places that permits smoking throughout 😷 Initially very lounge sounding (or perhaps that’s just me). But as the Vieux Carre cocktails slipped down the sound distinctly blocked out the rumbling of trains overhead (or… well, no not that… it does occupy a railway arch… ah, you didn’t see that one coming).

Until we speak again, falling off the chair, after too many local beers and fab cocktails, is permitted (or perhaps that’s just me!!!!!!).

Speak easy, Caerdydd

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With America’s decision to inflict a further four years of the narcissistic pathological liar on the rest of the world, there seems little reason to afford them the previous levels of attention. Even some of their historic cultural characteristics no longer provide a reason to spend a dime in their direction.

About 100 years ago, the speakeasy was America’s quintessential creation for getting around prohibition. For the last 10 years Cardiff has its own version (without the prohibition) with its own discreet method of entry…

Yes, I’m missing my regular visits to New Orleans. But, the first ever cocktail, Sazerac, created in NOLA, is ably recreated here on my own doorstep…

The Dead Canary (What We Do In The Shallows) also has a uniquely Welsh twist, with a creative drinks menu that includes stories of Welsh coastal history attached to each unique cocktail…

And some quite uniquely presented concoctions. Who needs a glass when you can drink your rum-based cocktail out of a skull? This one named Walter and the Wreckers…

Until we speak again, the speakeasy is alive and well, and discreetly open in a quiet back alleyway in Cardiff city centre…

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…

Lovin’ the ‘Diff – Arcadia

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Is Cardiff more than the sum of its parts? That’s a more difficult equation than you might think. After all, it has at least six quarters for starters! As I gaze over the dock feeder canals surrounding Chez Juno, I’m thinking of adding a ‘Duck & Swan Quarter‘ into the mix (?).

Looking at any city these days, it’s increasingly difficult to determine the DNA when so many multinationals populate identikit shopping malls. But, here in the ‘Diff, we at least still have ‘The Arcades‘. Yes, other cities have an arcade or two, but here, the city centre has somehow retained six of its originals within Cardiff Council‘s thirst for demolishing sections of its history.

I would write my own personal tribute, but I can’t top that of Joao Morais…

With full acknowledgement to the original source, I replicate an ‘Ode To The City Of Arcades‘ for those of you with failing eyesight:

Now if you truly had to choose

what Cardiff things would you enthuse?

A Central Market hot Welsh cake?

A pedalo round Roath Park lake?

The revelry of rugby days?

Pontcanna, Splott, The Bay, Cathays?

Consider, though, you may have missed

our FINE ARCADES from off your list.

They’re beautiful, you must concur,

ideal to any choice flaneur,

and full of any experts who

delight in sharing what they do.

You want a vape, a tailored shirt,

a pair of shoes, a vintage skirt?

A hair cut, board game, something sweet?

A gin, tattoo, or bite to eat?

These grand Arcades, each one unique,

are more than merely worth a pique.

They even offer – though mundane

a place to shelter from the rain.

It’s sometimes easy to ignore

the wealth of riches at your door.

If any place of many trades

deserves cascades of accolades,

it’s Cardiff’s great, first-rate arcades!

Until we speak again, thanks Joao, you put beautifully into words one of the many things about Lovin‘ the ‘Diff!

For more information on these fabulous arcades you can visit: thecityofarcades.com

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…

Hidden treasures

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City centres invariably have to cater for the masses. If it’s gems you’re looking for, then head to where the discerning people go… the leafy suburbs.

Even though I’ve known it in my head, it’s taken quite some time for me to venture into the quiet Victorian terraced streets of Pontcanna in my home city of Cardiff. Home to at least three of the city’s finest dining establishments.

If it’s useful boxes, you need to be ticking, then Thomas by Tom Simmons will probably fill your page. A restaurant developed by a proud Welshman, tick. Quiet and leafy surroundings, tick.

A menu focused on quality rather than quality (with a tilt towards excellent Welsh produce), tick.

Tasty beef tartar starter with flavoursome bread and olives, tick.

Sumptuous Beef Fillet and a delicate Lamb Chop, tick.

A Spanish wine from the Ribera del Duero estates to simply die for, tick.

Finished off with a smooth Penderyn Welsh Whisky, tick.

Until we speak again, don’t tell the masses, but Pontcanna has more than this hidden treaure to be luring discerning folk into the quiet backstreets.

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!

Historic Norwich

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Yes, York and Bath and Edinburgh are fabulous visits if you’re looking to indulge in historic reflection (all covered in previous posts). However, our islands making up the UK are steeped in history. The city of Norwich is a showcase example of what can be gained given the foresight and will to preserve our heritage.

With the Maids Head Hotel, Norwich lays claim to the oldest of its kind in the UK.

Its Winepress restaurant also provides a great option for dining while reflecting on that history…

Just a few steps, and you’re back many centuries on Elm Hill...

The wonderful maze of huts making up Norwich Market are also flanked by the Guildhall as a fine example of past civic pride…

And for those who enjoy a religious veneer to their travels, it is yet another city that boasts two fine cathedrals amongst the very numerous preserved churches throughout the city centre…

Claims to be its oldest pub (Adam & Eve) seem to come with a qualification, but the opportunity to prompt historic reflection with a fine local beer proves an unqualified success…

Until we speak again, if it’s history you want, Norwich has it covered… even in your hotel bathroom…