Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Blog

  • Leicester – The Two-Tailed Lion

    Leicester – The Two-Tailed Lion

    I may have mentioned (several times) how good the Hop & Vine pub is in Hull nd nowhere has yet exceeded that for me, although Goose Island in London comes very close. This pub in central Leicester was though really quite marvellous and certainly one of the best that I’ve been in.

    It’s a micropub in size, although they don’t refer to it as such. There’s a very on-trend feel to the whole arrangement, but it doesn’t seem to be formulaic and nothing is forced. That’s a screen with the live menu on at the end of the bar, they’re using UnTappd to power that (which also meant that I got to see my photo at the bottom of the screen when I rated a beer using UnTappd, a reminder that I need to get out more….).

    They have cask and keg options, the first photo is the Gatekeeper beer from Buxton Brewery and the second photo is of Julie beer from the GlassHouse Beer Company. I thought that the latter was particularly refreshing, a fruit beer with raspberry running through it which gave it an equal mix of sourness and fruitiness.

    They’ve got a room to the rear of the bar which is all quite airy and there’s an upstairs which I didn’t visit. Everything was clean, tidy and organised, with the beer selection covering most styles and there were some interesting options. However, it was the service which lifted the pub even further, with the barman being friendly, engaging and personable. I asked for recommendations for other pubs and he was keen to help, giving some excellent suggestions and helpful information. I will be trying out the recommendations that he offered, even though a few of the pubs are a little bit of a walk.

    It’s not exactly difficult to do, but I also liked how he acknowledged customers when entering, even if he was serving others and some pubs fail to do that. I was also interested to hear about what happened to the Head of Steam in Leicester, something that had intrigued me, but ultimately it seems they were too ambitious with their plans and lasted months rather than years.

    As for why I though this pub tipped towards exceptional, it’s just the element of friendliness which many locations can’t get right. They’ll be polite, but my measure is to imagine someone new to the area who tentatively goes in a pub to hope to find a local and meet friends. I feel that anyone in such a position would feel genuinely welcome here, very much the Hop & Vine approach. Maybe a little intangible, but there’s something all very competent and fun about this place.

    There were no negatives here for me, it was a well-run, comfortable pub which had excellent customer service at its heart. Quite rightly listed in the Good Beer Guide, it’ll be hard for any other pub in Leicester to beat this for me.

  • Leicester – Leicester Municipal Central Library

    Leicester – Leicester Municipal Central Library

    I thought that I’d have a little pop into Leicester Central Library to see what their collection of local studies books were like. It doesn’t open until midday on Wednesdays, which doesn’t feel an entirely ideal arrangement for the local denizens.

    The ground floor is mostly fiction and computers. Leicester had a free library on Wellington Street by the late nineteenth century, but it was the formidable and brilliant Andrew Carnegie who gave £12,000 towards the cost of a bigger and more spacious building. Carnegie’s only requirement of note was that the library was funded by the rates and the council willingly accepted his offer. The philanthropist also turned up at the opening of the library in 1905 where a large formal gathering turned out and it’s somewhere that still feels a fit for purpose well-designed building.

    There’s a one-way system through the fiction section with one person only at a time. It feels a little excessive, but I appreciate the efforts of the library to keep people safe. When the library opened, the local newspaper said that it was far better that “the average shoe operative, factory worker or shop assistant should spend his leisure hours with Dickens, Thackeray, Scott or George Elliot rather than soak in a pub or hang around street corners.”

    The Leicester Daily Post was also very enthusiastic about the opening of the new library, noting that the old building on Wellington Street had 6,000 books in the lending library and 3,000 reference books when it had opened in 1871, but there were now 23,000 books in the lending library and 17,000 reference books. It was expressed with pride that in the new library that the ladies had their own reading room and that “this is practically the last word in free libraries”.

    After going up in the lift (I couldn’t immediately find the stairs), I felt that this was more interesting, the reference and local studies section on the first floor.

    Unusually tables had to be reserved, which seemed completely unideal, but I went over to reserve a table and the staff were helpful. The local studies collection is very good, a decent selection of different titles and they were shelved in a logical manner. It was also quite interesting being seated near to the photocopier as the staff spent a lot of their time dealing with complaints from customers that they photocopier had photocopied something they didn’t want.

    Anyway, a perfectly decent library, although they have given so much space over to the computers that they have relatively little seating space for readers, which definitely isn’t at all ideal. The staff were friendly though and I felt that the book selection was decent enough, so nothing for me to complain about.

  • National Express : London Victoria Coach Station to Leicester

    National Express : London Victoria Coach Station to Leicester

    I’ve had a mixed selection of journeys with National Express, sometimes they can be excellent and other times they’re a bit more challenging. However, the fare to get from London Victoria coach station to Leicester was just £4.20, so I worked on the basis that even if the journey was bloody awful, then it was still cheap. There’s a logic there I think, sort of….

    I was going from Gate 2 and this was clearly indicated an hour before the journey. I like clarity and there was lots of it here, all very organised and there was seating whilst I waited. There’s also a Greggs and Pret nearby for those who like such things, and I popped to Pret for a drink….

    I liked this, an old image at Victoria coach station of how it used to look. Today, the coach station is quite cramped and old fashioned, really needing more space and a renovation. There has been talk of moving the site, but I think it’s staying here for the foreseeable future.

    The driver came and made clear announcements that passengers going to locations on the route that weren’t Leicester should board the National Express branded coach on the left. Those wanting to go to Leicester could get on this service operated by Roberts on behalf of National Express. I was a bit puzzled as to how this worked, as there are multiple stops that the coach was meant to take along the route, but maybe no-one had booked to go from, say Golders Green to Leicester. The driver was helpful though and everything was clear.

    This was a clean and comfortable coach, and I spotted that seat on the left was free. It’s near the toilets, but it also has no-one in front, so it remains my go-to seat. Yes, I accept I need to get out more since I’ve now got a favourite seat on coaches…..

    The service wasn’t very busy. Earlier on in the day I looked to see how many seats were left on the coach by doing a dummy booking, but it was showing as entirely full. That meant that I was expecting a packed coach (which wouldn’t have been ideal from a comfort point of view), but the dual operation meant that there was lots of space. This pleased me greatly.

    As for the driver, Tony, he was exceptional. Warm, personable, engaging and with a sense of humour, I thought his customer service was excellent. He added positively to the journey and his driving was professional throughout. An absolute credit to National Express.

    Safely in Leicester, arriving 50 minutes early which was a bit of a result.

    I assume that National Express are getting new facilities here, unless they’ve moved to a little Portakabin for fun.

    Anyway, this was a first class journey representing excellent value for money. A clean coach, friendly driver, professional driving, a cheap fare and lots of space, absolutely impeccable. I’m back to perhaps trusting National Express again and I would use them a lot more if I could expect this sort of service every time.

  • Leicester – Naked Attraction Bus

    Leicester – Naked Attraction Bus

    I’m now in Leicester and some of the local buses have this controversial advertising on. I’m amazed any bus operator let this out, although I know some expressed concern this weekend and most are now busy removing them following a deluge of complaints. It’s very clever from Channel 4, as unless they’re idiots, this was a deliberate campaign to get publicity for their new series of Naked Attraction. But why Arriva Bus let that go out is another matter. That it didn’t occur to them that a child might sit there and be photographed and mocked is bizarre, a media backlash was inevitable even if a large minority (or majority) was amused by it.

    Anyway, at least I’m safely in Leicester.

  • Paisley – Causeyside Street Pavement

    Paisley – Causeyside Street Pavement

    I was intrigued by these inscriptions along the pavement on Causeyside Street in Paisley and I thought at the time that they indicated the jobs that residents living in the properties had. However, it seems that they’re simply random, giving a list of some of the jobs that existed in Paisley in the past.

    I’m not very knowledgeable about textiles, weaving and clothing manufacturing, but it seems that a pirn winder was a job that a child could do (and frequently did) as it was winds the yarn onto pirns (a pirn is a rod onto which weft thread is wound). There are still advertisements in the UK for loom tuners, so that role has persisted (although I don’t understand it). As for hank winders, there’s a chat at https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=487070.0 about that….

    It’s all a bit beyond me, but it does make me think about what sort of job these workers would have had today in the current labour market. Many of these jobs were routine and very dull roles, but a necessary part of the weaving process and some of the few forms of employment that might have been open to many women and children (there don’t seem to be many men doing these roles) at the time.

  • London – Extinction Rebellion

    London – Extinction Rebellion

    Just photos in this post of the Extinction Rebellion protest outside Downing Street in London this morning. I won’t get involved in politics on my little blog (I’m very pro-rail, which is a tricky subject), but it was a friendly protest although some car drivers shouted abuse at the protesters. The police were very professional and were being engaging and helpful, so at least it was well-mannered and cars weren’t overly delayed.

  • Paisley – The Last Post

    Paisley – The Last Post

    As I was walking through Paisley yesterday, I thought I’d visit one last Good Beer Guide pub before my flight back to London. This is the JD Wetherspoon operated Last Post, which I chose as the other pubs listed appeared to be primarily sports led and I wasn’t going to risk that.

    It’s a grand building that JD Wetherspoon have converted, what was formerly the main Post Office in Paisley, hence the pub name.

    The upstairs in the pub, which wasn’t overly busy, just as I like it, nice and peaceful.

    And the downstairs area, which was a little busier.

    A half pint of Buffalo from Fire Island organic craft beer.

    And the large bottle of Elvis Juice, which came with the meal.

    With the meal being the chicken jalfrezi curry, which was very reasonably priced and towards the lower end of the price bands that the chain has. The food was all fine and cooked well, with everything at the appropriate temperature, so the usual value for money. Service was excellent, with a friendly team member bringing the drink and food, they offered a check back and also checked if I had enjoyed the meal. The environment was clean and comfortable, with team members visible cleaning tables down on a regular basis.

    I’ve noticed that the average Wetherspoon pub seems to score around 4.1 on Google reviews (I accept that I really need to get out more….), so this one is a little more negatively reviewed than the usual. Many of the reviews are the general complaints about slow service or tables not being clean, although I didn’t experience that. The complaint:

    “Went for breakfast, sold out of poached eggs but could still get eggs on a fried breakfast, so basically who ever is in the kitchen can’t poach an egg!”

    I’ve seen a few times from customers who don’t realise that JD Wetherspoon just reheat pre-cooked poached eggs that are shipped straight in. Another angry customer left them 1/5 noting:

    “They have my favourite poached eggs Benedict on the menu but they don’t serve it, something to do with the poached eggs being cooked off site!!??”

    For a busy kitchen, I like this approach, there’s a consistency to the process and it should be impossible to get a hard poached egg, although Richard has managed a couple of times. Anyway, I’ve digressed into writing about poached eggs in Wetherspoons, which is a bit pointless as I didn’t even order that. Back to the reviews, one customer commented “I got two camping chairs stolen in the pub” which sounds an exciting story as the criminal “grabbed them and ran straight past me”.

    There was a choice of five different real ales, so I can see why the pub has been listed in the Good Beer Guide, and since the interior also has some historic interest, I’m pleased that it has been listed. All rather lovely.

  • British Airways (Glasgow to Heathrow T5)

    British Airways (Glasgow to Heathrow T5)

    This is the return flight, I went from Heathrow T5 to Glasgow last week. To my considerable annoyance, this journey wasn’t available for anywhere near the same price using the rail network, I try to avoid using aircraft for domestic flights.

    I started from the Travelodge at Glasgow Airport and was pleased to note that they’ve made it easy to walk to the terminal by providing clear signage.

    And the terminal at around 6am.

    The list of departures, mine is the 08:15 flight. Note that I arrived only 2 hours 15 minutes before the flight, which was cutting it very fine indeed as far as I was concerned.

    There’s already a JD Wetherspoons landside, so it seems that there will soon be one airside as well. It was at this point that I popped into the British Airways lounge.

    I liked the artwork here, some interesting Scottish scenes.

    And some information about it, a really lovely idea to help promote the work of an airport security officer, Christopher Marr.

    The minor problem with air bridges is that I can’t photograph the aircraft, this was the nearest that I could get, but the back of it is pointing out at least. It’s aircraft registration G-EUUI, which I haven’t flown on before (I don’t remember the aircraft I fly on, I have to search my own blog, although that’s good for the access numbers….) but has been in the British Airways fleet since 2002. The aircraft went to Dubrovnik after it landed at Heathrow, I must admit to being slightly jealous of it….

    Lots of people in boarding groups 1 to 3, a lot more than my flight to Glasgow last week. The boarding gate staff were helpful and cheerful, which I thought was impressive for an early Tuesday morning. The cabin crew were equally engaging, so first impressions were all very positive again. The pilot sounded chirpy and happy as well with his announcements during the flight, so my general impressions remained positive.

    The view from the window, although I was more engaged in watching some customers in the aisle trying to put their bags into the overhead lockers. Children often have a toy where they try and fit a shape through a hole, I suspect some of these customers didn’t have that game when they were younger. They will try and fit a bag that clearly doesn’t go in the space provided and look endlessly surprised.

    I had an exit row seat by the window, but the aircraft was full and I didn’t see any empty seats at all on the flight. The aircraft felt very clean, but everyone was handed a cleansing wipe if they wished to do a bit more cleaning.

    Flying over Glasgow and what I assume is the River Clyde.

    The free food and drink was a bottle of water and a Nutri-Grain bar, entirely sufficient for an hour long flight. The newspaper was free at the airport, I’m not into paying for them.

    The aircraft arrived 29 minutes early at the airport, but arrived at the gate one minute later than anticipated, with a half hour wait on the runway for a gate to become available causing that delay. The pilot made regular announcements, so it all felt professionally managed and I wasn’t in a rush anyway. Customers seemed content (no-one was tutting or grumbling anyway) and the disembarkation process was well managed, with five rows being called to leave the aircraft at a time.

    And this is where the domestic passengers are tipped out, right down the end of the terminal.

    13 minutes?!?!?! This Piccadilly service back into central London was every ten minutes a couple of years ago, apparently now reduced to every 20 minutes. For most parts of the country a 13 minute wait would be normal for public transport, but in London it stands out as feeling a long time.

    Anyway, this was another perfectly operated flight from British Airways, I remain entirely pleased at their service. All rather lovely.

  • Glasgow – British Airways Lounge

    Glasgow – British Airways Lounge

    I wasn’t sure if this lounge would be open, as British Airways have closed some of their outstation lounge facilities, and also there are a few third party contracts that they haven’t yet renewed at other European airports. However, the facility was open and there was a friendly welcome from the staff member at the desk.

    It was busy when I entered, as the previous flight was about to depart, but it soon emptied out to this. I like this style of desk seating, but there were a range of higher chairs and lower seating as well, which should offer a suitable option to nearly everyone.

    There were plenty of power points dotted around the place and efforts made to put some artwork on the wall.

    Looking down the lounge back towards the entrance. The lounge was clean throughout and the staff seemed to be trying to thoroughly clean it after the first wave of customers left. There are also toilet facilities available directly from the lounge, so customers don’t need to go back out to use those in the main terminal.

    The food and drink section was closed off, so customers were served by staff. Unlike the system that BA have in their London lounges, there’s no app provision here, just helpful staff pouring coffees and the like.

    The menu wasn’t very broad, although I was there for breakfast time. They seemed to be mainly providing porridge to customers, that was certainly the most popular option. I went with the yoghurt and fruit, as the thought of porridge or muesli didn’t appeal. That was complemented by crisps and a pastry, along with a latte. The food and drink was all quite basic, but given the size of the lounge and limitation of the facilities, it seemed a reasonable offering.

    Announcements are made when it’s time for customers to go and get their flight, but there are numerous screens around the lounge so it’s easy to know when and where to go. It never got very busy during my visit, so there was always plenty of seating available for those who wanted it. It was also evident just how many customers knew the lounge staff, I imagine they must commute on a regular basis. As a lounge, it’s perfectly sufficient with food, drink, helpful staff, wi-fi and lots of power points, so a positive start to the day.

  • Glasgow – Glasgow Cathedral

    Glasgow – Glasgow Cathedral

    I’ve done that annoying thing I do (one of many to be fair) of taking way too many photos of an historic location and then struggling to fit it all into a blog post without it becoming overlong. So, I’ll keep this short and if I ever get time start to add some of the other historic elements into other posts. It’s an important building as it’s the only medieval cathedral in mainland Scotland that has remained relatively intact since it was constructed. Well, other than when the Victorians knocked down the two towers at the western end in the mistaken belief that they were more recent constructs. They weren’t.

    The history of this building dates back to 614 when St. Mungo (also known as Kentigern) buried a holy man named Fergus at this site, building a small church. When St. Mungo died, he was buried here and that was the end of the matter for some centuries. Then, a decision was made in 1136 to build a cathedral on the site of the church, which was later replaced by a more substantial thirteenth century building.

    Back to my visit, visitors had to pre-book a ticket on-line, although there was no charge for doing so. I was saddened a little to see an elderly gentleman at the entrance to the door who was trying to explain that he didn’t know he needed a ticket and he was really keen to visit as he had been to some other historic abbeys and churches in Scotland and had been looking forwards to this one. They didn’t let him in.

    As for the Covid handling, the cathedral is managed by Historic Environment Scotland and I’m entirely puzzled who has come with the idea that they’ve had to introduce a one-way system which huddles everyone close together. They have an enormous cathedral and they’ve created little aisles to corral visitors into, making social distancing as hard as they possibly could. Anyway, I had an exciting building to look around so just waited patiently in the queue that they’ve created.

    The nave, which was an open area of the cathedral where visitors could walk where they wanted. Out of the photo and behind me there were about fifteen people crammed into one small section of the building working through the cathedral’s one way system.

    Back to my little history. Following the Reformation in Scotland, the cathedral started to fall into disrepair (not helped when someone pinched all of the lead) and there was talk of it being entirely demolished as an unnecessary structure. To be fair, the talk was likely from someone who planned to sell the stone off or similar, a fate that led to the destruction of the neighbouring castle. Then it was decided that it would be a handy place for Protestant worship and repairs were put in hand, but not much beyond that. The Victorians knocked the building about a bit, but there hasn’t been a reason for any major changes since the Reformation, hence the survival of the main fabric of the medieval cathedral.

    The chapter house and whilst visiting I had a little dilemma here. I waited patiently at the top of the stairs as the signage said one household group only could look around it at the same time. Then the helpful volunteer told me to go down as one more person would be fine. I think I then annoyed the couple who had also patiently waited to go down that I looked impatient and was trying to hurry them.

    The cathedral’s crypt.

    In the 1860s, it was decided to make a major investment and the stained glass in the nave and choir was removed and replaced with glass from Munich. This seemed a good idea, but the Munich glass started to fade and it was agreed that this wasn’t ideal, so it was taken out in the 1930s. Some of it has been placed around the crypt where it’s dark and won’t fade.

    The centrepiece of the cathedral is the burial place of St. Mungo. In medieval times, this was a place of pilgrimage and I was amused to note that the authorities at the time created a complex one-way system to add anticipation to a visit to the tomb. These pilgrims created a substantial amount of wealth for the cathedral, a revenue which was lost following the Reformation in Scotland.

    Anyway, this is a beautiful building with a complex history, but with much original structure from the thirteenth century. I’m not entirely sure that the cathedral’s social distancing is working as well as it could, but the staff were friendly, helpful and engaging. There were also numerous interpretations boards around the cathedral which gave useful information about the history of the structure. It was certainly worth getting a ticket to visit the building, although I’d add that I got muddled up near the end of the visit and went the wrong way to try and exit. The staff member told me not to worry as lots of visitors got confused there, although they probably didn’t and she was just being polite.