Bristol, cream of...

Mrs O and I are off to Bristol this weekend.  No especial reason - we just fancied it.  There's something very lovely about Bristers.  It has its own vibe - intense but not frantic, self-contained and unconcerned about what goes on in the rest of the country.  It's also an exhilarating mix of the ornate and the grubby, like all great cities.  Bath, in contrast, is a bit too twee to be genuinely exciting.  And one can go too far in the other direction and overplay the grubbiness - see also: Ipswich - a lesson from history.

We haven't been down there for absolutely yars.  The reason for this is that it's a big ask for us as we live in east London.  We had a car until January last year, but what with getting across London before you even hit the motorway, it was just too much hassle to be worth the candle.  We could have got the train down, je suppose, but trains at the weekend in Britain are like Yates Wine Lodges - expensive, noisy and full of tattooed drunks.  So that's out.

I believe Brizzle has changed quite a bit over the last few years.  There's been a concerted regeneration programme in and around old dock etc.  While this is to be welcomed (it was rather rough around there), you'd have to hope the developers haven't ripped the spuds off the place as well as the warts.  Some economic regeneration zones have about as much atmos as a branch of Boots.  Canary Wharf, anyone?  We shall see.

I wonder if Tricky still lives down there.