Street people

One last point I'd like to make about the street people who infest the city of Nice - I saw the best busker I have seen for many a long year there.

She was an old lady who sang without any form of amplification in the market place. She was accompanied only by a guy in a beret, who plonked away on string instrument (I'm no good at identifying such things) to very good effect.

Altogether, they were an excellent combination and the marketeers applauded with the public at the end of each song. They performed for about an hour, which I thought to be the limit of the old lady's strength and repetoire, as she really put heart and soul into such classics as "Je ne Regrette Rien", then gathered up their money and left with dignity to an all-round peal of applause.

What a contrast to the buggers who make a damned nuisance of themselves in our High Steets, blasting out amplified crap to annoy passers-by.

The Streets of Nice

Someone recently told me that Ralph McTell's famous folk song "The Streets of London" was originally written about Paris. Well, all I can say is that neither London nor Paris has got anything on Nice for the number and variety of "street people". The mild climate and the number of nooks and crannies in which to doss has attracted bums and stiffs from all over Europe. One favourite spot for dossers is round the side of the rather magnificent War Memorial garden (pictured), so much so that the place stinks permanently of piss.

Every day as I went from the flat I had rented to the beach, I passed an old bag-lady who had made herself a regular home on a street-corner out of old junk, umbrellas and broken deck-chairs!

All very picturesque and you might be inclined to sympathise, but not if you've paid two or three hundred thousand euros for a flat with a view and what you get is a permanent street encampment outside your front door and visible from your balcony.

On the promenade I passed a lovely public garden with palm trees, flowers and benches but it was NOT available to the public, having been completely taken over by a pair of tramps who had spread themselves and their belongings over all the benches, even hanging their clothes up in the trees as a wardrobe. Once during the week I spent in Nice I witnessed the Police moving them on, but they were back within hours.

It's little wonder we sometimes hear of "police brutality" in dealing with these people. It must be very frustrating for them.

It's nice in Nice

Recently, Marion and I rented an apartment right in the centre of the Old Town in Nice. I was on the Garibaldi trail (he was born there), indulging my fascination with that greatest of all heroes of the 19th century. The Old Town was everything we could have wished for, with wonderfully atmospheric narrow streets, full of life. It was a treat to wander around in the evenings, down the narrow alleyways brightly lit by shops of every description.

One thing that didn't suit me, however, was the price of the beer - 6.5 euros on average for a miserably small glass, not even a pint! Even during the "happy hours", the price only fell to 4.5 euros. And yet the amazing thing was how many drunks there were. Each night inebriated revellers reeled around the streets shouting and making a nuisance of themselves. How do they afford it? Barely had the last of the revellers cleared off than the street cleaners arrived, whistling and rattling about as they hosed down the roads and pavements. Very necessary no doubt, not only to clear up after the drunks but because Nice is a town of not-too-conscientious dog owners.

No, Nice is not the place to go if you want a peaceful night's sleep, but it's a great place nonetheless. Who wants to sleep anyway?

The Keelman's Way

A year or two ago (when I felt leaner and fitter) I followed The Keelman's Way, a cycle track along the south bank of the river from its mouth to West Gateshead, a distance of about eight miles. I passed one or two interesting pubs along the way, including the exotically-named Elephant on the Tyne, a subject I will write upon in the future.

The keelmen were a bunch of hard-drinking bargees who punted the coal down the shallow river to the waiting ships in centuries gone by and the pubs along the riverside saw many a wild "spree" (as they called a boose up) when the keelmen decided to celebrate. The engraving opposite shows "keelmen gathering for a spree". Keelmen's sprees were invariably accompanied by the music of a fiddle or the pipes, and ferocious stamping by way of participation.

I have read a report in an 1805 copy of The Newcastle Star which records that the publican of the Dunston Tavern was "obliged to call out the Watch for the stamping and ranting of numerous keelmen did threaten the integrity of his premises". Too late, the Watch arrived to find that the tavern had collapsed into the river, drowning two of the keelmen. Perhaps this is the origin of the expression "to bring the house down"!

If you want to know more about the keelmen and their unique way of life, you might do worse than to buy one of my little booklets, as featured in the left-hand column of this blog (oh well, it was worth a try...)

The Refurbished Zoo

Once upon a time we had a bar in our town nicknamed The Zoo. It was so called not only because of the plate glass window along the front of the bar where habitual drinkers sat and stared out moodily at passers-by, but also because of the behaviour of the clientele.
A constant row seemed always to be taking place in that vandalised and smoke-blackened bar-room. People hurled insults at each other across the room in the ripest of language, although the arguments, no matter how endless and fierce, never progressed beyond verbal combat.
It was good to go there and quietly enjoy the spectacle. Alternatively, if you felt like letting off steam, it was equally good to join in. Leaping to your feet you could roar across the crowded hubbub;
"YOU, you f**king bastard, shut your f**king hole!", or some such pleasantry.
Yes, it was a wonderfully refreshing experience and one left feeling light as the air, having gotten all the aggression and rage out of one's system. Far better, and cheaper, than a visit to the psychiatrist.
But now the owners have spoiled it all. Recently the premises was closed for a fortnight and was fully refurbished. Gone are all the old slashed sofas and greasy tables and the place gleams with new paintwork. No-one feels at home there any more. The creatures of The Zoo have been scattered to the four winds and the old place is as quiet as the grave.
I went in there yesterday and heard no swearing and not even a single cross word.
What a let-down! I left feeling all bottled-up and frustrated. There was no relief to be found.

The Waggon at Eighton Banks

A generation or so ago, if you had mentioned The Waggon at Eighton Banks, near Gateshead, people would have thought you meant a railway truck. For this area was once one of the hubs of the thriving North-East coal industry, employing hundreds of men and working day and night.

Now, sadly, all is dereliction. Since Thatcher's feud with Arthur Scargill, all the pits have been closed and all the associated work in the area has come to an end. Some of the buildings still survive, like the incline hauling station shown opposite, but most are in the process of being ground up to make rubble for hardcore on the roads. It's a sad sight.

But the nearby Waggon Inn is thriving - and rightly so. Here you can get an excellent home-cooked meal for a very reasonable price, big portions too. There's none of your standard menu stuff as dished up in the chain pubs. The Waggon cooks on the premises and I can recommend the home-made steak and kidney pie and, most especially, mince and dumplings, if you can get there early enough before they run out!

They serve a good pint of Timothy Taylor's Landlord, but my favourite has to be Mordue's Workie Ticket, a bitter beer which retains its head right down the glass.

Yes, I would say that if you are interested enough in our industrial heritage to go and visit Eighton Banks, you could do a lot worse than to stop off for a pint at The Waggon.

Soft Furnishings

If I were a pub licensee, I would certainly keep soft furnishings down to a minimum.

On a recent visit to Haworth, I was driven out of two pubs by the pong. In the first, The Black Bull, the smell of dogs was very strong and I certainly wouldn't have liked to eat there. I like dogs and like to see them in pubs, but they cannot help but leave their scent on the carpets where they lie.

In the second pub I visited, there was a lingering smell of cigarette smoke. I'd better not mention the name of the place in case they are foolishly ignoring the ban (I don't want to get anyone into trouble) but actually, I think it was because the place needed refurbishing. It's very hard to get the stale smell out of carpets (and clothes!) so I suppose years of impregnation has taken it's toll (as the guy said to his wife after their fifteenth kid).

No, if I were a licensee, polished wooden floorboards (like in The Gunmakers, Clerkenwell, my son's gastropub) and simple wooden or metal furniture would be the order of the day.