Hello.

Well, well, well, who’d have thought that this would happen? If you can’t be arsed to click on the link it leads to an article in yesterday’s Guardian by food journalist and cook Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall celebrating the fact that MacDonald’s is doing so badly in the UK that it is to close 25 branches. The image of the chain here is not a good one and I think that’s not just to do with the recent court cases and “Supersize Me” but because it’s perceived to be somewhere used by a certain “class” of people and because the advertising is so bloody cheesy. Without wanting to sound incredibly jingoistic I think that the brassy, in-your-face style of the food chain’s commercials may appeal to other nations but not to us cynical Brits who tend to look upon the whooping, over-enthusiastic, self-promoting type of image which stems mainly from across the Atlantic with a rather patronising eye… and perhaps not a little “there but for the grace of God…” as we struggle (not always successfully) to avoid going down the same route. Anyway, as Hugh says, good news for food lovers everywhere. Or is it? I don’t mind the very occasional evil indulgence of something from MacDonald’s and I get irritated by self-proclaimed food experts who screech “but the awful taste…” The fact is that to me they don’t taste awful and everyone now and then it’s nice to have a little of what you fancy, even if it is served to you in a restaurant which purports to be owned by a terrifying clown figure. (And I note that Ronald is conspicuously absent from advertising on British TV these days, although he remains prominent abroad.)

I bet the evenings have just whizzed happily by in the Jowell/Mills household for the past week or so. The news this morning that Tessa and David are to separate adds a new dimension to the whole “dubious” money farrago. She’s been exonerated of course by the cabinet secretary’s enquiry (no surprise there, then) and has the backing of the cabinet from the Prime Minister down (see previous brackets) but this new development might suggest that she has doubts of her own as to the source of the money that her husband received.

In the world of TV has anyone else been watching “Stargate” recently? Doesn’t it seem to have got a bit turgid in the past few weeks? It’s still entertaining of course but it seems to be in a rut. Nothing juicy has happened for ages and while I quite enjoy the comedic aspects of the programme I wonder if it hasn’t got too stale. The earlier part of the series, with the introduction of Ben Browder’s character and the wondrous Claudia Black as a guest star (and bring her back, please!) and the new foe was great but it has tailed off into a formulaic knockabout every week. We’ll go on watching, though. In the meantime “Atlantis” goes from strength to strength and the most recent episode on our screens, “Michael” with a superb guest role for “Enterprise” actor Conner Trenneer as the subject of some questionable experimentation by the Atlantean mob, was fantastic. What I like about this newer series is that they explore their own motives and made decisions that are flawed or even plain wrong. The characters can see that they are acting as badly as their enemies sometimes but that they need to do so in order to survive. In some respects “Stargate” has lost that edge and become too comfortable.

We’ve also been watching the new series of “Battlestar Galactica” which is now about as far removed from the 70s version as it could get. This is a show for adults, not Sci-Fi for kids. It tends towards the dull and repetitive sometimes and the plotlines can be dragged almost to the point at which the viewer wants to scream “bloody get on with it” at the screen, but on the whole it’s great. The episode from this week, with Lucy “Xena” Lawless looking absolutely ravishing as a blonde and speaking in her natural New Zealand accent (Drew was shocked, he thought she was American), was fine but dull in places… only to be justified by a shock ending. I suspect our Lucy will be seen a lot more in episodes to come.

They’re doing quite well for themselves on American TV, these Antipodean women, aren’t they? Lucy; Claudia - they should be proud of themselves.

My favourite TV crush currently is the cute, squeezable and hairy hairdresser to the rich and famous, Andrew Barton. What a huggable lad he is. At the moment he’s the resident hair-rescue expert on “10 Years Younger” on Channel 4.

I’m not, as a rule, a fan of makeover programmes - things like “Extreme Makeover” and “The Swan” because they’re too sickly for me, but I do like “10 Years…” because it’s much more pragmatic. There are tears, of course, but there’s no overdone “reveal.” Plus the plastic surgery carried out tends to leave the subject looking nice but natural, still with lines and the natural shape of the face intact. On “The Swan” particularly the women all look the same at the end; it’s as though the television company bought a job-lot of facelifts. And what possessed Amanda “Patrick Kielty” Byram to do that show? (It’s a rhetorical question - a career in American television possessed her, that’s what. Would you stick with breakfast television in Ireland if you could get prime time in the States? It would be tempting…. Mind you it could go the way of Danni Behr or Amanda de Cadanet, and if any of you dear readers just thought “whoooo?” then I rest my case.)

Ages ago Drew bought, at discount prices if I remember rightly, some books on CD. One of these is “Ice Station” by Mathew Reilly, a book which I’d never in a million years consider reading. However, in my quest for something fresh to listen to on my way to or from work, I ripped the Cds to the PC and then on to my little player and now I’m thoroughly enjoying it. I think as a book I would have found it hard to persevere with but as audio entertainment I have no problem with it. As far as I know it hasn’t been adapted into a film, but it strikes me that Mr. Reilly may well have had this in mind as he wrote it - every character is described succinctly and in such a way as to be incredibly distinctive and there’s even a 12 year old girl, Kirsty, who is feisty-yet-vulnerable (and a bit of cliché) and her pet seal, Wendy. The inclusion of these two gives a perfect ready-made-for-film quality to it, as do the authors scene-setting descriptions. We’ve also got another of his books on CD somewhere, so I think I’m going to add that, too.

I had my appraisal on Friday morning. It began at 9.30, which is the time I’m supposed to start work by every morning. I rarely do start at that time although this is often because I’ve stopped off to buy milk for the shop and also because as the main lock-upper I’m still in the shop about 15 minutes after everyone else has gone. In short, my appearing to be late is not an issue… however, yesterday morning I thought I’d better be there and ready in time. It all went off very well and there were no horrible surprises. Between us Boss and I managed to dredge up some objectives and made, on paper, some things I am already doing in practice, look like things I need to begin to do. I’m one of several people who are really enjoying what they do and for whom an appraisal is really just a formality. I also made a point of asking Boss to thank everyone for their contribution to my role this week - they came up trumps with one particular publisher. Over the past few months there have been several titles that have eluded me but this week they were found - God knows where. So he’s going to make a point of congratulating everyone for their efforts, and rightly so.

While the week began badly, with me taking Monday off, the rest of it proved to be a vast improvement. The weird effects of dosage change were all but gone by Thursday and I have caught up to the extent that missing Monday has made absolutely no difference. I can have three days off now with the comfortable knowledge that nothing is hanging over my head for when I return next week. I like it when it’s like that; it means that I can sit back and enjoy the weekend without anything nagging at the back of my mind.

And it was a good weekend, aside from the news that my Grandad seems to be getting a bit more poorly as time goes on. He had an “accident” at Mum and Dad’s on Saturday and although everyone dealt with it calmly and kindly he was understandably distressed. He’s tired, bless him, of life really and often says he doesn’t understand why he’s still here. As his memory fades slowly and his physical state weakens I can understand why that is.

We spent the daytime on Saturday taking it easy and just spending time “together” without interruption, watching videos and so on. The evening was a double celebration - we had two birthday things to go to: Boss’s 40th celebrations and another friend’s birthday later on. For the first we met up with other people from work, and Boss of course, in a pub just off the town centre (he’d chosen the venue so that he could see the football results on TV there) and it was quite a crowd. Having been dubious about the whole event in the week or so running up to it, it was pleasant to see that he was thoroughly enjoying himself. He was thrilled with the present we got him, a new England “away” shirt - but I’d done some research by ringing his wife and asking her what he wanted, so that was no surprise.

At 7.30, as he went off to meet his wife and a few us split from the main group to go and meet F and her sister for an Indian meal to celebrate her birthday. She used to work with us at the shop but having spent a year working at an offshoot of the BFI, she’s studying andlecturing on film studies at a university (it escapes me exactly which one.) Last year we went to the Indian restaurant that our friends often frequent but this time it was decided to try somewhere that none of us had ever been to before. I won’t name the restaurant because our experience wasn’t entirely a good one, but it has been there for while apparently.

I’ll deal with the negative first: the service was woefully unorganised (i.e. the first people to get their main “meaty” dishes were the last to get the accompanying rice), there was a mix up over which nan breads were supposed to be served and the place was cold, despite the radiators being on, and the lights weren’t on in the toilets (and there were no switches that any of us could find - although being British none of us ever mentioned it to the waitress.) However, the waitress was charming, a real sweetie although her jumper and tracksuit trousers were a bit of a shame, and it was impossible to be annoyed about anything with her. Most importantly the food was astoundingly good. It’s a shame that we won’t be going back there unless we hear better reports of it. Following the meal we went on to The Dove for a postprandial beer. It was strange to go in there as a late-comer rather than spending an evening there; it seemed incredibly busy in a way that you don’t notice when the crowd builds up around you. I’m pleased to report that my determination to be careful about what and how much I drank paid off; two pints in the first pub accompanied by two orange and passion fruit J20s meant that I was at least one pint down on normal, and then in the restaurant I had one bottle of Budweiser (which was quite nasty) and a pint in the Dove - so I had the equivalent of 3 pints and a bit over a long period and with food. Not bad going.

The lack of drink meant that I wasn’t hungover on Sunday morning, although the food from the night before meant that my stomach wasn’t fabulous and woke me up at 6am. I went back to bed and dozed on and off until half past 7. By 8 I was dressed and out and taking photos around the docks, where a tremendous amount of work has been going since I was last down there, and around parts of the town centre. The sun was out, creating one of those beautifully crisp, clear and bright mornings that you only get at this time of year, although one drawback of it only being early March was that the sun was low in the sky, throwing shadows where I didn’t necessarily want them to be. No matter, it’s not as though the town is going anywhere in the near future…

I like going out at this time of day, particularly on a Sunday, not just because the light can be so good if conditions are right, but because there are so few people about. I find taking photographs embarrassing sometimes, though I know that’s faintly ridiculous. If there are lots of others about I feel they will be looking at me and wondering why I’m choosing what they might see as unexciting buildings as my subject. I remember years ago going out with my little camera to take pictures in town on a Sunday afternoon, but that was in the days before Sunday trading when the town centre saw only a few people out for a stroll. Those days are long gone and nowadays a Sunday can be as busy as a weekday.

I started off by taking a photo of our new local Co-op building so that I can contrast it to the old one, and then moved on down Back Hamlet to where my “lottery house” has reached the final stages of its much-needed renovation. I would dearly love to know the history of this place - the Ipswich Society mentioned that it has as its core a 16th Century farmhouse, so clearly it has seen many changes since it was first built. It was obviously rather grand more recently than that, and now it’s continued existence is ensured so it looks as though it will have been in (more or less) continuous occupation for 500 years!

From there I walked down to the docks, pausing to take photos of the back of Suffolk College along the site of one of the roads mentioned in Frank Grace’s amazing book “Rag and Bones” about this area of Ipswich.

From the same spot I took a picture across what is now a major road junction to what was once the Steam Packet pub, with the new flats on Coprolite Street behind it. Once this area was highly populated, with hoards of people walking to and from work along Duke Street but now, the flats aside, it’s devoid of population.

I walked along Coprolite Street and emerged onto the dockside. It has altered so much in the last ten years and no doubt the next ten will change it so much that any time travelling visitor from the past would find it hard to recognise. The old warehouses towards the Stoke Bridge end of the dock area are in the process of being almost completely demolished, although parts of them are being left ready to be incorporated into the new build that will eventually take place there. I’m glad that the two lots of giant iron pillars that front the quay edge are remaining in place.

When I reached the Custom House I came across several other men with cameras, and when I say cameras I mean large SLR cameras with attachments and all sorts of things which put my little digital one, new as it is, to shame, so I turned out of the docks on to Quay Street and up to one of my favourite streets in the town, Lower Brook Street. Aside from the ghastly modern buildings housing the local paper’s printing machines and offices this is one of the most intact historical streets in Ipswich with a variety of different styles of buildings spanning a couple of centuries.

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Unfortunately this was one of the places where the curse of the low sun was at its worst, so I couldn’t get all the photos that I would have liked. I’ll have to go back later in the year.

Lower Brook Street and all it’s little-known grandeur leads into Upper Brook Street, never quite as grand and never really a place where people lived. From what I‘ve read of local history it’s always been a place for trading, drinking and for the traveller to stay. If you take the time to look above the modern shop fronts in Ipswich (as in any town or city I imagine) the vestiges of the past remain. Upper Orwell Street is a good example of this, with the remains of an old coaching inn where horse drawn coaches would arrive from and set off to London, amongst other places. What was once the entrance for the coaches and which led to the courtyard and stables behind is now a passageway through to the car parks that lay behind Woolworth’s and the Co-op complex on Carr Street.

Through the coach entrance and on the Woolworth’s car park I stopped to take a couple of pictures of the backs of tall, Victorian shops that front on to Carr Street. These stores must have been quite grand, judging by the attention to detail paid to the back of them. The round windows are eye-catching. Of course many of the staff would have lived on site in those days, but their lowly presence wouldn’t have encouraged the architects into grandeur, surely? Probably the upper crust owners did that.

The same shops from the front:

Still standing between the 1960’s Woolworth’s and the Victorian edifice that is the Co-op are three shops remaining from the row of Tudor houses that once lined the street. Really only their size betrays their origins as people have altered the fronts over the last few hundreds of years. Ignoring the monstrous Woolworth’s and the striking architecture that the Victorians treated us to I can’t help wishing there were records of how the Tudor street would have looked.

The rest of the Co-op shows the difference in building styles across the 20th century from the 1908 building in the foreground through to the 1970s at the far end.

Another of my favourite streets, unappreciated by many as being shabby I think, is Upper Orwell Street. Again the light here wasn’t very good and the only picture I took which was worth sharing was this one of the Co-op Funeral Service building as was (they’ve moved now) which is 100 years old this year. It looks comfortable here, settled. I hope it doesn’t fall into disrepair after decades of abandonment in the same way as it’s neighbour, also one of my favourite buildings, has sadly become.

This once smart house in Fore Street seems to be undergoing renovation of some sort although the replacement of the original, contemporary wall with a nasty modern red-brick one doesn’t bode well. However full marks for the fact that two of the original trees from the front garden, long since lost under tarmac, remain. Let’s hope that they stay…

I was getting a bit tired by now, and there were more and more people about, so I decided to head for home via the grounds of the Suffolk College. This area has been constantly changing since the 1500s at least, possibly longer as traces of ancient quarrying (on a very small scale) have been found there. The 21st Century will see no change then as the College and buildings previously occupied by Suffolk County Council are to be developed into a university site. What was once the car park for the council still has traces of the terraced streets that were there during the late 19th and early to mid 20th century but I fear these will be lost soon and so I took some photos there.

First the main Suffolk College block. This may be demolished during the redevelopment

Old kerb stones on either side of this part of the car park show the layout of the original road.

Likewise the old guttering stones and kerb show how the more modern buildings were built into the pattern that the old back-to-backs had. I used the photo with the drains to show how narrow the street here must have been - it must have been very gloomy with the terraced houses crowding in on either side.

And then it was time to get home. I stopped mid-way up Grove Lane to take a last photo across the valley towards the trees of Christchurch Park and the tower of St. Margaret’s Church. I’ve posted that picture and a zoom from the same spot.

I’d intended to stay up doing stuff when I got home, but I’m afraid that Drew looked so comfortable and the bed so welcoming (or is that the other way round) that I slipped beneath the duvet again for a few hours.

We did get up in the end, of course, and spent the day doing a lot of very little, though Drew did some more painting in the hallway. It was a very, very nice day.

This morning we watched the video of the late 60’s film version of “Quatermass and the Pit,” which is very good but parts of which haven’t aged very well. This afternoon we’ve been out to Felixstowe to have a stroll and to take more photos, this time of an area which is to be completely redeveloped. More of that soon - I think I’ve typed enough for one evening.

I’ll finish with a photo of my Grandad and his Great Grandaughter (my niece) - 99 years between them!

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