If you walk around a town in England today, a familiar sight are the hoardings.
There are old shops fronts still there, and empty shop units missing shelves of shoes or bedding.
It’s a sight that blights more towns than you might at first appreciate.
Take for example the photos below, and you’ll get my point. This isn’t a new building or a modern unit for a quick coffee shop.
It has some history about it, and character.
Heavy FramesA Blocked DoorUpper FloorsLatticed Windows
Yet, it’s empty.
My affront is not at the sight of it – or its ‘look’ – but a question of what it means.
Do these types of building not fit anymore, or suit our modern tastes? Is it about our comfort over “mod cons”, and eschewing of the old and fuddy-duddy?
It may not be, but it’s an interesting omission in a nation of old and ageing towns.
The requisite “battle buses” have gone out to the four corners of the UK to find voters willing to listen to our three main parties.
The campaigns of Labour, the Conservatives, and the Liberal Democrat’s are in full swing and online, too.
Take for example the website ToryManifesto.org.uk, a campaign site advertising itself on Google search. It’s full of statements by the Labour team over the failures of the Conservatives.
It makes for miserable reading (give it a whirl).
Its starting point is; “WHAT THE CONSERVATIVE GOVERNMENT HAS ACHIEVED IN THE LAST 14 YEARS…”.
It’s not accurate since Rishi Sunak has not been in office that long, but I get the point.
It’s the Tories wat’ done it.
As usual, the same lines are drawn over failings that aren’t all a single Prime Minister’s fault.
He can take credit as well as blame, however, so it proves the necessity of a campaign.
Religion doesn’t get a good rap these days. In fact, it’s public reputation is so bad that to some respondents, it just doesn’t have a place in “public life” at all.
This is odd, considering its place in public life.
Take for example the public services that are necessary to our way of life (christenings, confirmations, funerals, etc.), and you’ll get my point. The largesse of statecraft, and royalty, is also only brought down to our level by its religious aspect, otherwise it wouldn’t be understood at all.
This is a fact of life right now, otherwise we would be atheists, indeed.
Take for example St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden, pictured below. It’s a genial old fellow of a building, and protrudes boldly out from its towering height. Or at least, in times past it might have seemed more fantastic than it does today, in its quaint abode.
The Entrance (Side View)The Entrance (Front View)
The point is that these have existed before and exist today to be servants of a purpose. Mostly, we now view those purposes to be our own, as before but with a lot less enthusiasm about it.
By it, I mean the religious aspect of saying the vows – secular and sacred – and meaning all of it (this is important too, in religion).
Yes, the use of these buildings is low, but meaningfully they capture the spirit of the age, still.
It’s not necessarily a top hat and religious dress type of set up, but it makes sense to find meaning and belonging if you want to. We all do this at some point in our lives, unless we’re atheists, or we’ve found a better place to do it.
The sight of people appearing in their tens of thousands at a coastline is not easy to deal with.
In some respects, it’s our most difficult challenge today.
It’s a crime to do it, and it only prospers because of crime gangs. It isn’t possible to just ‘appear’ on a coastline and disappear to another country. It takes a lot of law breaking and force in order to make it happen.
In the UK, we face this almost daily. The fact is many have arrived, and many keep coming, so much so that we are beleaguered with a sense of crime on our shores.
It isn’t pleasant and it isn’t a happy affair. It means dealing with very dangerous people.
It also means fighting back, which is the hardest part of all.
Now that health alarmism is behind us, how does the state of things look now?
In my view, fairly good. I’ve visited surgeries and hospitals on numerous occasions in recent years and nothing has looked better than the NHS.
Its facilities are clean and up to scratch (a new ‘robotic’ surgery aid was delivered to one hospital), and its staff seem happy to help.
The only trouble is getting an appointment.
In past visits the waiting room has been largely empty. I guess doctors have FaceTime now. At other times such as at the A&E side of things the waiting area has been packed.
I guess accidents can still happen.
The NHS is in rude health by the looks of it, but the funding side of things is largely kept apart from a patient’s own experience, that is apart from an odd charity collection.
The advent (or innovation) of GB News is a project to be admired simply because it exists.
There was a time when it seemed no one could stop complaining about BBC News and a dearth of ‘alternative’ news channels that didn’t fit the “mainstream” mould of both the BBC and Sky’s attempts at twenty-four hour news streaming.
These days are not yet behind us, as GB News and also Talk TV lag behind not just in viewers but in significance in the UK news media market.
It’s not just a question of a make-or-break interview, but it’s also a matter of working out how a news channel makes itself significant anymore.
Is anyone really taking note, and is it worth watching at all?
These are questions for a political culture, and not for news journalists, but analysis of both sides of the spectrum amount to dire news for these agencies.
It looks as though they all lag behind in some respects, and GB News isn’t on honeymoon anymore.
According to analysis by Redfield & Wilton Strategies, published at the end of April, it appears as though GB News is doing ok in respects of the demographics of its audience base. They’re Tory voting, mostly beer drinking football fans, who enjoy the banter and gossip on the rolling news channel.
Gone are the days of conservative politics just being about… exactly the same thing. It means they’ve managed to reach the over 55 age range, which you would imagine makes up much of today’s television viewing habits (or at, least those still willing to see it out in long form).
It’s instead of the younger folks, like the University generation of graduates, and those wanting to still see themselves in on the act of following politics, and don’t fit a particular mould.
In my view, this is still a niche considering the complaints about the BBC and Sky, but it’s one that is not easy to fill pockets with, if you get my drift.
A new pub opening isn’t always a totally new event, if you consider that sometimes an old pub is reopened under new management.
This is the case in Reading, Berkshire (a place I’ve reported from before), where The Sun Inn is due to reopen as The Rising Sun.
It’s not just the new management that matters. As part of the Heartwood Collection, it’s also taking on a menu devised by Raymond Blanc, a famed name in the culinary world.
This isn’t just a new venture here in the town, as it’s also something of a trend in the UK at large, where pubs are being reformed into eating venues as well as the traditional fare of drinking and casual musical entertainment, to make it a bit more of an experience.
A side shotA signWorks at a side
The pictures are only indicative of what it looks like now from outside, and its choice of graphic design points to a more shaped and relaxed appeal that is inviting as well as familiar for return visits.
The site itself is allegedly an historic place of Reading’s oldest pub, and for a town that has a lot of them, it’s a good claim to fame.
However, we’ll have to leave it to see if the proof is in the pudding
The “fashion” argument doesn’t transcend everything, so says the agent of change who sees human rights as valuable and an important part of human life.
There’s not much that can be denied about “rights”, as they are termed, but perhaps the guarantor of these rights is not as easy to contact as Amazon, for example.
The United Nations has not opened a phone line as it were, and so ‘getting through’ isn’t so easy at the moment. It takes more than a phone call to get that problem sorted.
The issue of rights isn’t new, but it’s novel to have to talk about them in such clear terms as every day life.
They don’t fit in with how we’ve seen things before, between us, so it’s new to have to factor in the inalienable rights of another person as we figure out who they are, and how to treat them.
This isn’t in Jane Austen’s works, for example, and neither is it in some of the older textbooks that pertain to former times.
There wasn’t a legal obligation in those days for what we discuss today. There was simply a “yes” or a “no”, or a perceived “right” or a perceived “wrong”.
Today, we’re more certain.
We’re so certain in fact that many people have a deep need for and appreciation of what human rights doctrine says in international law.
After all, this is where they’re guaranteed in law. It’s not a national legislature that decides these things, or has the last say, but it’s from our roots as a common species these things come from and are decided by.
It’s not up to us as individuals, but we’re more protected – and our wellbeing is more guaranteed – than we were previously led to understand, or believe.
On looking at London, there is not much new to meet the eye. In fact, it’s best known for having a lot of old stuff that is so old it fits back into an older version of London that no longer exists.
This is why much of it is a sight for tourists and attracts so many visitors each year.
There’s something warm about feeling nostalgic but in many instances this warmth is on the backdrop of a lot of the pain and hardship of previous times.
In many famous instances Charles Dickens, our national ‘social historian’, wrote about it and much of the ‘problem’ is long gone. In fact, it’s so far gone it’s on the outer reaches of the city metropolis today.
You won’t see this sort of poverty that often and if you do it’s usually being dealt with.
I’ve seen plenty of individuals and charities helping out where help is needed and many people sing the praises of these intelligent and kind efforts.
There’s also a lot of antisocial behaviour that such recipients of this kindness need to put up with and this is also a concern, and so the Metropolitan Police deal with it where they can.
It’s such random acts as these that can be hard to be present for and to track down as well.
In older London, the police were a force to be reckoned with too.
The old Scotland Yard is still written into the memory of the city, and even though it dealt with London’s toughest criminals and made crime pay, it is still looked back on with some fondness (even if things are as bad today).
The sight of help being given of whatever form is something to be praised but often it’s felt as a duty or a job and this is something we like to think we can afford to pay for because it’s a job that does well for such a city as London.
In fact, it’s a legacy of all those footsteps of law and order, and the writers that made it an issue, that still makes it a job to do, even today.
The election is underway. Campaigns have kicked off and Sunak and Starmer are busy talking to the people (as politicians usually do).
What’s different about these elections is that, now, “social media” can play its role in sharing, spreading and highlighting a politician’s message.
This happens all the time in elections overseas and the UK is no different. In-between our ‘prime time’ election events there’s plenty of fodder to be found on social media sites like Facebook and X.
These are major go-to platforms for social debate, sometimes uncivil disagreement, and thread-by-thread debate – and it can get interesting. There are other platforms too, like Discord and YouTube, but these aren’t used in the media and so their cultural relevance isn’t as high.
The online world is abuzz with activity most days and it’s worth looking out for what people are posting. It may be a candidate is recorded on the campaign trail (or off), and something else happens that sets them in a whole new light.
It’s still a choice, though, and as the ballot box date approaches it’s worth checking out someone else’s opinion even if it is online and they insist it’s a shoo-in for the Monster Raving Loony Party.
Street food is a burgeoning part of our culture, even though it’s a tough gig fighting against a well-established restaurant scene.
I say that, because ‘street food’ as a thing doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to those who didn’t like kebabs anyway.
Kebab vans have long been a staple of some people’s nights out, as street food is now a part and parcel of someone’s afternoon out in the sun.
This is how we roll, some might say, as they take a light afternoon stroll and pick up a portion of curry or a box of cheesy chips to carry.
The delights of street food also show no end, as street food festivals and street food corners also pop up as and when, with a willing array of delights, and an equally willing customer base.
The methods of payment are easy, too.
Food with a messageA pizza to-goPork-based meals
The appeal doesn’t reach everyone, but it’s an improvement on a can of coke and a suspicious looking helping of meat.
The joy can also be palpable, too, as music is played out, or folks sit around with their new-found meals.
I’ve walked through a number of these, and each time the choice impresses me.
However, I’m a stickler for the same, so it’s off to the pub for me, as I leave the rest behind.
