Too Essexy For My Shirt

Figured I ought to slow down the gallivanting and appreciate what's around me, because Essex is looking particularly handsome this Autumn with its new yellowy orange coat on. Castle Park, Marks Hall, even Essex Regiment Way all have a certain golden dignity about them.

So let's talk Essex:

Coggeshall
When I heard Baumann's had closed I was sad. But I went there and it's still the same. Apparently the old Head Chef has taken over, so aside from it being called Ranfield's (which is much easier to spell) it is the same. You should go. The food is awesome.

Fingringhoe
I saw a kingfisher. That makes the UK my third kingfisher country of the year. Fairly sure that's never happened before.

Colchester
I've been dabbling in Street Hunt. It is super geeky. Thought it would be right up my leafy boulevard but frankly, my knowledge of suburban Tendring is nowhere near good enough. Street Hunt, you have defeated me. 

Chelmsford
And this is the biggy. A bina fide box tick: I went to the horse racing. I didn't understand it. It just seemed to be people getting drunk and making decisions which resulted in them losing money. My complete lack of knowledge of (or interest in) horses probably didn't help. Still, box ticked.

Industrial Drinking

Another trip to South Wales and another opportunity to drink beer in industrial premises. It's starting to become a thing...

Bloomin' love Pontypridd. Gonna keep the blogging about it short because everything I did - rugby, faggots and peas in Ponty market, drink craft beer on an industrial estate - I've mentioned at some point before. But still, ace.

Also ace was The Ferryman. Everyone else has already told you to see it. They're correct. That is all.

Highway to Hull

"Pottsy, you're from North Hull mate. You're acting like you're from Swanland."

I went to Hull and it was ace. I went because of the Capital of Culture thing. That and the fact it's the biggest city in the UK that I've not been to. It was a whole heap better than I was expecting. 

Two main reasons for this:

1. We stayed at the Inkerman Tavern. A heavily muralled pub on the middle of an industrial estate, which was absolutely heaving on a Friday and Saturday night - it had a Duke of Sussex (Rest in Peace) vibe going on, and there's nothing wrong with that.

2. The Freedom Festival. The whole city came to life with a cross-art festival. There was modern dance, tight rope melodrama, Peruvian folk and child hairdressers - all of the main ones, right? And I saw Chiedu Oraka, leading light of the Hull hiphop scene - I now feel Hull enough to pass for an 01482head.

So yeah, I liked Kingston Upon Hull a lot, with its white phone boxes and its blue Fanta. With its enormous moths and its lack of cash points. The journey though, not so much.

Heading up on a Friday night was always going to be a bit rubbish but I was hoping that the journey back on a Sunday would be better. But we went to Grimsby for breakfast. Nothing against Grimsby itself but it's not pumping on a Sunday. And not many of the tyre shops are open on a Sunday. And there is a limited choice of breakfast on Grimsby industrial estates. And let's just leave it at that. Fair to say, could have been far worse.

The New Normal

So I've been back a month now and, frankly, I'm quite enjoying pottering around Essex doing Essexy things. Keeping it local. I took the foot ferry from Brightlingsea to East Mersea. How Essex is that?

It's been weird seeing what's changed and what hasn't. I was aware of some of the big changes (Bond Street) but it's the smaller changes that have perhaps been more surprising. I mean Baroosh has gone, that is a surprise. What happened? It was perpetually busy and overpriced, surely that's the dream combination for a successful business.

What else? The UB is a gin and real ale bar. The Snip is flat. The Saharan restaurant is now a Turkish restauant and the Co-op is about to be a turkish restaurant - who knew there was that much demand for souvlaki? Oh and a new Co-op has popped up to feed the student market.

I have had a sneaky London sneak too. Had to get my culture on - drinking craft IPA at the Bottle Bureau wasn't quite culture enough. Went to the Sir John Soane Museum. I hadn't even heard of that. And yet it:
A. was quirky enough to be right up my boulevard.
B. Had a Marc Quinn exhibition on. And
C. Had The Rake's Progress hidden in a cupboard. That's a proper famous painting. Hidden. In an obscure museum. How does that happen?

I doubled down on culture with that Tin Roof play. Didn't get it. It seemed too long and nothing happened. All the powerful character bits were undermined as I just didn't care about the characters. M'eh.

Sell Out

Number eight and it kinda feels like the sparkle has faded. That the magic has gone.

It wasn't the mud. It wasn't the rain on fancy dress day. It wasn't even the organised crime that led half the Slaves moshpit to have their phones stolen.

It was the toilets.

In previous years the toilets at Standon Calling have been straight-up good. This year you would have to qualify that as "good toilets for a festival" by which I mean the toilets weren't very good at all.

So, thanks for the memories, Standon, thanks for the memories.

Bye Bye Pig City

So ten months, that's a long old time, especially in this crazy country. Demonetisation, smog, earthquakes, weird bites, a teeny-tiny malaria scare, tribulations of a thieving maid and a couple of monkey attacks.

Twenty-six cities across sixteen states. Five hundred kilometres on the prison gym treadmills. Forty-odd novels read (including some biggies). Far, far too many hours of Netflix.

So what will I miss?

The colours. You'll be hard pushed to see someone wearing grey here.

The trees. They are like normal trees, but bonkers.

The curries. It's not just acceptable to eat three curries a day, it's encouraged. Back home if I have two curries in a week I feel decadent.

The Clocktower. My token bit of quasi-normality, quasi-routine - it's sort of an English-themed microbrewery (turns out I am that person). The routine goes like this: get a beer taster, order an American IPA (Clocktower lager for Marius), discuss why we get a beer taster when we order the same thing every time, eat a club sandwich, listen to Mona by Craig McLachlan.

The animals. The squirrel-cum-chipmunks that they do here are adorable and it's still a treat when I see an elephant or a monkey.

The pigs. How can it not bring a smile to your face when you see a particularly dishevelled pig walking down the road. Or sitting in a puddle on a hot day.

So goodbye India, these are your best bits:

Temples:
Best: Sun Temple, Konark
Weirdest: Temple of the Divine Madman, Panaka (yes, yes, I know, but none of the temple-weird that India offered came close. I see your chariot of filth and I raise you two children playing with phallus-a-like human femurs. If you're gonna insist on an Indian weirdest temple then) The Monkey Temple in Jaipur, although the weird was more whatever it was that was going on there, rather than the temple itself.

Lassi:
Tastiest: saffron lassi, Jodhpur
Weirdest: cashew/chocolate/pistachio/glacé cherries/whatever-else-is-around lassi, Konark

City: Varanasi with Jodhpur hot on its heels.

Curries:
Tastiest: anything on the menu, Varangula, Navi Mumbai - this is an interesting cultural case study. A lot of the Brits I know that have been there (correctly) rate it as their favourite Indian curry; all the Indians I know that have been there think it's average.

Weirdest: brain curry, Karims, Old Delhi

Beach: I'm not telling you, I feel I must keep it a secret otherwise you'll only go and spoil it. So go to Puri instead, that needs some visitors.

Food:
Spiciest: Naga chutney, NagaCuisine, Guwahati
Tastiest: Chaat, Kashi Chaat Bhandhar, Varanasi

Animal? Viva Pig City

Introducing the Bandh

So a bandh is a shutdown strike. And a shutdown strike is exactly what it sounds like.

Pondicherry (yes, I know it's Puducherry now, but it just doesn't sound right, does it? It's weird how some cities have taken to the new names and others just haven't) is a former French colony. Streets full of balconies and bougainvillea. A wide seafront promenade. A nice romantic place for a saunter, or if you are going solo then a place to bounce between coffee shops and drink reportedly the best coffee in India.

Or at least it would be if there wasn't the bandh. As it was I spent five hours sweating around the streets before heading back to the "ashram" I was staying in to nap in front of the fan until the strike passed. After bandh o' clock the streets were buzzing and Pondy seemed properly alive, I guess I was just unlucky with timings. Not the first time (Leh, Shimla) and not the last. Not even the last of the weekend...

I was flying out of Chennai (see that one is easy, I never feel the need to say Madras. Is it something to do with how different the name is?), so left Pondy on the early bus to try and see what the Capital of the South was like. The Capital of the South was closed.

I made the mistake of starting on Marina Beach (I say mistake, it was sort of necessity, no one understood my accent for anything else: "Fort St George?" "You want go 'institute'?"). Let's double-down on that, mistake seems unfair, it's a pretty impressive beach. When people talk of good city beaches they don't mention Chennai (Rio, Nice, Tel Aviv, Muscat maybe, but never Chennai - not even Madras). I'd say Marine Beach is bigger than Copacabana and Ipanema combined. And the waves were insane. Proper waves, like you would draw, rather than the little lappy twinkles that you usually get.

By the time I was off the beach Chennai was in siesta mode, so I spent the afternoon looking at the outside of closed temples. With the benefit of hindsight, I should have just sat and watched the waves all day (although I suspect the selfie-with-me requests would have got wearing). Still some of the temple gates were pretty...

Food fact. Curries from Madras are not as hot as Madras curries.

As an aside, I'd just like to say how nice it is to have a pun for the post title. Feels like it's been ages. I was in Powai the other day. There was nearly a post called I've Got The Powai despite me not having anything to say. I'd have had to contrive something out of going to restaurants that sound like they should be in Shoreditch (Fatty Bao, Madeira & Mime, sodabottleopenerwala - well Hoxton) and it being the start of my week-long imperial tour of the colonial Capitals: Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi, Madras - How very imperial...