Tag Archives: photography

Getting so much better…

Posted on by
2

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

Posted on by
2

“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):

Hwyl meets hygge

Posted on by
Reply

Its February. Its cold. It feels like its been wet forever. So what… here in Cardiff the traditional hwyl of Wales has been amplified with a splendid addition of hygge from Denmark…

Brod (pronounced Breuhl so I’m reliably informed) has been here in the city and Penarth for coming up to 10 years. Leafy Pontcanna is the longest established, followed by Penarth, and more recently on James Street in Cardiff Bay. All are supplied by their own bakery in Rhymney.

Okay, so I’m not one of the world’s early adopters. But, I have to say, on this occasion, I admit I’ve been missing out on something.

First, there’s the delightfully named Mad Brod for a lazy Sunday morning breakfast treat. A soft, light bread with this version covered by bacon and brie. [Today’s Observer newspaper helpfully provides proof of life, so to speak 😂]…

Alongside the Mad Brod, the above photo also includes a sweet version of proper Danish Pastries… this one being a Ginger, Rhubarb and Custard Spandauer. The following is the stanard-bearer Custard Spandauer from a previous visit (believe me, you really don’t just make one visit to Brod 😍).

If hygge is a Danish form of cozy, contented warmth on a winter’s day, it combines well with the Welsh sense of hwyl being a welcoming sense of joy in the moment. How better to relax and enjoy those quieter, slower moments in life.

Until we speak again, if you want a Danish pastry you really need to go to a Danish bakery and coffee shop. Those things our home-based bakers and supermarkets call Danish pastries… just aren’t by comparison.

The sourdough bread looks pretty good as well 😋

NOLA: UK-style

Posted on by
1

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.

Berlin remembers, do we?

Posted on by
Reply

100 years on from the Weimar Republic, Berlin has much to remember. From Weimar to Third Reich to a divided city to the Fall of the Wall. Has any other city witnessed, experienced, suffered, and emerged from so much in such a relatively short time?

One woman immortalises the changes in a statue that is calling out for peace before the Brandenburg Gate.

The most significant remembrance surrounds the plight of Jews, in Berlin and across Europe. The Jewish Museum in the West Kreuzberg district is a Daniel Libeskind design, most disorientating in architecture, as its floors and walls disobey the builders spirit level. But its content is a creatively laid out history of Jewish faith, culture, and history.

For a particularly deep chill, spend a minute or two in the dark and claustrophobic Holocaust Tower…

However, for heightened emotion the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe provides a space for reflection and imagination. The undulating topography accommodates a dense array of grey concrete pillars of differing heights…

Walk deep into the sculpture and be immersed in your own thoughts. Then visit the enclosed museum beneath the sculture for heartbreaking personal accounts of the effect of the Third Reich across Europe.

On the site of the former Gestapo Headquarters now stands an open air monument to the history of division in the city, running alongside a remaining fragment of the infamous Berlin Wall. Known as the Topography of Terror, it depicts the major changes of the last 100 years, and horrific consequences of those changes.

The division of the city is particularly well represented in the Friedrichshain district of old East Berlin. Here is the longest fragment of the former wall. At 1 mile in length it’s considered to be the world’s largest open air gallery. East Side Gallery is a feast of modern art. What better way to democratise a former harsh symbol of division…

Until we speak again, Berliners have shown a remarkable capacity to remember its tragic recent history with vibrancy and humour. 100 years on from the ugly emergence of the Nazi Party in Germany, is the rest of the world once again failing to learn the lessons of history?

With the Chief Narcissist of Dumbfuckistan in Washington buddying up to Psychopath One in the Kremlin, and the rise of populism in every western nation, we need the current day messages from Berlin more than ever before.

All that Jazz!

Posted on by
Reply

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

Posted on by
Reply

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!?

Posted on by
Reply

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

Posted on by
Reply

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)

Posted on by
Reply

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…