Missed the Summit

Posted on April 16, 2015 by Steve Morgan

Following on from the success, or otherwise, of the NATO Summit in Wales in 2014, Juno had completely forgotten about the animal version right here on her doorstep. As she approached it seemed like the delegates were already in the process of leaving.

However, the moment did cause her to briefly reflect on an exotic lunch missed!

As Juno used to say, until we speak again may all of your summits be tasty events!

Lunar confusion

Posted on April 11, 2015 by Steve Morgan

It’s getting late… a pint or two too many at the City Arms kind of late. These days I miss out on Juno’s quiet air of indignation as I return home later than promised; though I wasn’t sure whether she knew the time, or simply presented in the same way whatever time I got home.

It’s the time of night when sailor’s come into their own, as they navigate a way home by the location of the moon. But such a skill seems to become more difficult than expected in an inebriated downtown central Cardiff. Where is that moon when you need it? In the early hours of a Spring night Cardiff seems particularly blessed by many moons.

Who says that alcohol marinated logic makes no sense? A walk through a local wooded copse will surely be the solution to narrowing the moons down to the real one! Well, perhaps it doesn’t necessarily narrow down the number of potential moons, but there are a few clues beginning to shape up.

Even a few pints of the hoppy stuff can’t dim the realisation that a mix of man-made unnatural wood and a man-made built environment gives a zig-zag trajectory a bit more of a focus and direction. Now I am able to narrow down the options…

Strangely enough, the real McCoy presents itself in full-moon splendour just at the moment it is least needed… I seem to be home.

Who needs the moon anyway, when you have a carefully developed and honed homing instinct? Now, just before the hangover kicks in… what do we do on a cloudy night?

Until we speak again, I seem to recall similar escapades in the past, only with the scary addition to the end of the night of something that resembled half-cat/half-door. The moral of this story is drink sensibly, or if you don’t, at least try to enjoy the bizarre distortions that the world presents to those in need of surgical realignment of their ‘eyes-to-sockets’ relationship.

Capitulation in the sun

Posted on April 6, 2015 by Steve Morgan

Cardiff City 0 Bolton Wanderers 3

“EARLY SEASON HIGH EXPECTATIONS QUICKLY BECAME SHISH KEBAB… SKEWERED!”

Until we speak again it is important to remember that Bill Shankly once claimed football was more important than matters of life and death, but Juno’s view on football hyperbole was to respect it primarily for its sedative qualities… what can’t be said about football under 10 words wasn’t worth listening to!!!

Reality cinema

Posted on April 2, 2015 by Steve Morgan

Juno always agreed with my stance on reality TV, that it is a far more enjoyable and informative pastime to sit and read the paper instead…

However, being an indoor cat she never got to experience the joy of cinema. Perhaps just as well, as on a recent foray around the old haunts of Cardiff, I became painfully aware of the impact of the recent trend for the multiplex. It is heart-warming to hear of year-on-year increases in cinema attendances, the video/DVD/Blu-ray predictions of the death of cinema are clearly premature. However, this is not the full story, and nostalgics and history lovers have some causes for concern.

Cinema, as some of us old gits originally knew it, has certainly suffered in recent years. The ‘joy’ of cinema is hardly exemplified in the outward projection of the ‘Gaiety Cinema‘ on City Road in Roath…

Having first seen ‘Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines‘ here as my first evening visit to a cinema back in 1966, I was saddened when the old place succumbed to a subsequent wave of cinema > bingo transformations. Clearly, the continuing appeal to a youthful demographic by converting the place to a venue for bowling, music and a bar seems to have secured its future!

Then, as I walked along Pearl Street in Splott, or Adamstown (that’s a geographical debate yet to be had), I was reminded of the dangerous outcomes of what you might put up on the big screen. ‘Splott Cinema‘ may have seen better days…

… but with all the explosive action movies that have been the rage in recent years, it is my guess that ‘The Towering Inferno‘ was a film too far for this grand old local community cinema…

As Juno used to often say to me, until we speak again “I’m watching you!”

Cats in search of fish

Posted on March 28, 2015 by Steve Morgan

Trinidad cat and Welsh cat converge on unfamiliar Italian terrain, and with noses pointed skywards there was nothing better to do than search out the local catch. But why make this a challenge, when the best starting point is milk-based beverages of choice? The guide tells us that Antico Caffe Spinnato is one of the better pavement-side cafes for the best in cappuccino’s or a caffe ginseng… accompanied by a 7-layered chocolate in-house design, and a wild strawberry tart.

Suitably refreshed, it was time to go in search of the elusive scaly edibles. This place is known for its local fishing fleet and characterful street markets, but where is a street market when you need one? Down back streets and through piazza’s we meander…

Perhaps these guy’s might provide a clue as to the whereabouts of the local fish, after all they seemed as uninterested in strenuous activity as any self-respecting cat…

As we turn one corner after another the clues are hard to find, but as for Garibaldi (Teatro Politeama, that is)… that’s got to be taking the biscuit!

So, we might need to resort to a hope and a prayer at this stage. Never fear, if it’s a prayer you’re after this place is over-run with prayer shops of all shapes, sizes and states of decor…

From cathedral-sized praying venues to piazza-edged confessional sheds, or the simple street vending of pious niceties, this place has you covered…

As we were seemingly running out of the right kind of prayers a sight of a couple of locals emerges, as if to give us a message… ‘keep going’, was the clear instruction, but where to?

Sometimes it doesn’t matter how cool a cat you are, you just need a matter of the luck to fall your way; and so it was to be, as two cats retreat to the accommodation of choice…

The statues of the Quattro Canti were smiling down on us as they shaped up to herd tired cats in the direction of fish-focused culinary delicacies. The Centrale Palace Hotel might not have projected the most promising of entrances, but the invitation to a top floor roof garden restaurant was always a throw of the dice worth taking. A mouth-watering starter of melon and locally-sourced ham or the prawn salad was eagerly supplemented by a Sicilian red wine of clear nomenclature ~ the Etna Rosso:

Then, the journey was complete, as the elusive catch gets caught! A swordfish and capers affair, delicately dressed with cranberries and aubergine, or a finely prepared sea bream were laid out for our magnificent consumption.

Successfully replete, what do you do after such a feast? Well there is always the home of the operatic and balletic cats… the Teatro Massimo provided the venue for the final scenes of the Godfather trilogy:

As Juno would say, until we speak again ‘that’s Palermo for you’! Grazie, arrivederci.

A dim view

Posted on March 20, 2015 by Steve Morgan

What was all the fuss about? Here we are, having waited nearly 16 years since the last some such event, and Cardiff wakes bathed in clear blue sky sunshine. It is the perfect conditions for the much vaunted eclipse… and with many parts of the country blanketed in clouds the centre stage is set for the capital of Wales to stage the spectacular!

It is 9.45am, and I guess it was supposed to be a time of bright sunshine. Just as the light begins to fade, the drums start to roll, and then… it begins to brighten up again!

So, as my old friend Juno would have said: “Until we speak again, don’t blink!”

Popping the cherries

Posted on March 17, 2015 by Steve Morgan

Cardiff City 1 AFC Bournemouth 1

“SEASIDER’S SHOOTING STARS STUMBLE IN SEARCH FOR SKY’S SINECURE.”

[With thanks to twitter.com and http://www.afcb.co.uk for badge images to illustrate this post].

The hard yards

Posted on March 14, 2015 by Steve Morgan

There seems to be no hiding place in international rugby, but Juno was clear that the strange rituals of putting heads between a team-mates thighs in order to push a group of guys a mere foot or two backwards was something definitely worth switching off to. As for the idea of kicking the ball 50 yards into the sky and 10 yards forward, just so you can run full speed into an opponent always seemed to her to be a strange premise for a sport. But, whatever the quirks, Wales v Ireland is going to be a game of intrigue and celtic passions. A true sporting battle is on, with high stakes… for Ireland a victory means the chance of a Grand Slam is still on. Victory for Wales leaves them still with a slim chance of winning the Championship. And all of this happening at the beginning of a World Cup year!

So where will the battle be fought? In the first instance, Ireland have an unassailable advantage:

The young pretender from the Cardiff brewery presents well, but what is going to compete with one of the world’s most renowned liquid refreshments? Step outside of South Wales and who has even heard of Brains Black?

Then there is the matter of the scrums, and the arena of myth and legend suggests that the Irish might again be too strong:

So when it comes to the real hard yards, where the big guns aim to charge through the defensive lines of the opposition, both sides are well equipped with their examples of the hard stuff, but arguably Welsh anthracite reality may triumph in this phase of the game over Irish mythology:

‘Emblematic’ is an often overused phrase in so many walks of life, and none more than sport. So, in such an emblematic game, where emblematic heroes will have emblematic moments, with the potential to provide us all with a truly emblematic result of emblematic proportions… it is important that we look at the emblems each country are able to call on in order to underscore their emblematic expectations.. It seems obvious to me that in a game of rock, paper, scissors the leek will most likely crush the four-leaf clover:

So, my intrigued reader, you are left no clearer about how this match is going to play itself out. With an array of plants and vegetables, rocks and stones, and liquid dark stuff to line the sensibilities before, during and after the event… fill the arena, bring on the gladiators, take possession of cultural and religious metaphors of your own choice. Then, at the final whistle just add a joyous and decorous home support…

This has been Juno’s View of rugby, but until we speak again to find out what she thought of the current Cricket World Cup you will need to go somewhere lower on the excitement scale than baking cupcakes or creative crochet patterns.

[With thanks to http://www.2beerguild.co.uk, http://www.interest.com, http://www.sassycats.com, http://www.irishindeed.com, http://www.data-wales.co.uk, http://www.themissfitchronicles.com and http://www.universityobserver.ie for posting the images used to illustrate this post].

Cats love coffee

Posted on March 12, 2015 by Steve Morgan

Preening the whiskers and slinking around the city centre it became very clear to Juno that the great new industry of the 21st century has become drinking coffee. Whilst slurping it from a bowl would more likely have been her choice (and no, for the RSPCA affiliates out there I didn’t feed my cat on coffee!), it would appear that people are becoming more sophisticated and even somewhat nostalgic about how and where they take in their beans. A quick slurp of the hot and wet stuff is so 20th century Britain!

Connoisseurs of the art now have several locations around the city of Cardiff, with Brains Brewery even being the owners of a favourite independent chain of Coffee#1. Then, as you turn into the Castle Arcade you are rewarded not just with a light, airy and fascinating space, but also a great example of the new world of consuming coffee… welcome to Coffee Barker.

Step back into a world of dimmed lighting, leather chairs and sofas of all shapes and sizes, and celebration of stripped back brickwork and wood. Chaotic displays of bric-a-brac only add to the ambience… unless you happen to be a stickler for the post-modern clear lines and surfaces favoured by the multinational chains, who largely want you to know you are in their place (anywhere in the world), not somewhere distinctly individual!

This is a place for cool cats (Note: other cats are also welcome!) to hang out, chat, check out their digital world, or even do some old fashioned pastimes like reading physical copies of print!

But, Juno would always have been more intrigued by the goods on offer, and she would have been interested in the early bird offers (for more than one reason)… get there before midday to sample one of the best doorstep bacon sandwiches of any vegetarians nightmare:

The cappuccino is also made to be savoured in a state of relaxation. So, until we speak again Juno would always wish that your coffee beans are brewed with an artisan’s love.

Two tribes…

Posted on March 7, 2015 by Steve Morgan

Cardiff City 1 Charlton Athletic 2

“ENGAGING THE BATTLE FOR THE DIZZY HEIGHTS OF MEDIOCRITY.”

[With special thanks to fotosearch.com for posting the original ‘mediocrity’ image used to illustrate this post.]

	David on Searching for Lebanon
	Kirt on NOLA: UK-style
	Wanda Rusiecki on Frohe Weihnachten
	Steve Morgan on Turkish delight
	Wanda Rusiecki on Turkish delight

JUNO's VIEW

Seeing Cardiff and the world through the eyes of one cool cat

Tag Archives: Wales