Caistor St Edmund

Norwich is a city that likes a dragon. Even without the GoGoDragons roaming the streets there is definitely an above average number of dragons in that there city.

Norwich is a bit of a weird one.  I went quite a lot as a kid but I had never explored the city as a grown up.  I'd always discounted it as just a slightly bigger version of Chelmsford. Which is somewhat false. The city was dripping with both history (with its Norman castle and enormous cathedral - Chelmsford cathedral could probably do a three-point turn inside Norwich cathedral) and culture (there seemed to be cinemas everywhere).

There just seemed to be a buzz in the town, at least when comparing it to the last similarly sized British city that I went to (which was Coventry a couple of weeks ago.  Now this is unfair, I'm comparing Norwich on Pride Saturday to Coventry on a Thursday afternoon. However Coventry didn't shower itself in glory when I asked at the tourist information what I should see if I only had a couple of hours - "it's after three, everything's shut now." Anyway, back to Norwich). I wandered out to the edge of town to get to the Sainsbury Centre.  This suburban, provincial art gallery was stuffed full of famous names. I know that this was a special exhibition and not the regular collection but three Michelangelos and a Titian?  Really?  That's just showing off.

Birthday Thoughts

A decade ago I lived with a guy called Nick and his extensive collection of Detroit techno singles in an uber-hip Manchester loft apartment. A fair chunk of my best flat-sharing anecdotes come from that year.  Here's a very small one:

"I'm just bobbing to the shop. Do you want anything?"
"Nah, you're alright, cheers."
"Catch you in a bit."
Nick returned home five days later - lucky I din't need milk.

Today would have been Nick's 40th birthday. It would have been a hell of a party.

The phrase "Rest in Peace" doesn't seem appropriate - it pretty much misses the point of Nick - but you get what I mean.