Number Seventy News

Incredibly, Berwick Kaler has been doing the York panto for 30 years. We must have seen about 20 of them. This year, Dick Turpin – a new plot – or actually the same plot with the characters having different names. Every year I just sit back as the curtain goes up and think “here’s two hours of totally enjoyable nonsense.” Yes, it’s a bit self-referring because all the main performers have also been doing it for years – but it just gets more and more spectacular. And always fairly locally grounded, with references to Acomb, and Knaresborough, and the Three Legged Mare. Even the Victoria and Albert museum is adding a video of it to its archive of British theatre – now there’s famous !

York Spice, on Bishopthorpe Road. Best Indian Restaurant in town, I’m sure. Excellent variety, well cooked and all dishes distinctive. (So unlike an appalling take-away in Sheffield, some years ago, where each of the 4 dishes we ordered was an identical brown oily sludge). Support the economy – eat out !

Alas, ice and lack of oxygen have got to the fish. There were four, then three, then one – now no more. RIP.

Just for the record, “Chesil Beach” seemed to me uninspired, trivial, and implausible. I read it immediately before Thomas Hardy’s “The Trumpet Major”, which is well-plotted, ironic, revels in fascinating detail of country life, and engages one with the characters. Thinking of a short novel to contrast with “Chesil Beach”, I recalled J.L. CArr’s “A Month in the Country”, an almost perfect sensitive evocation of cautious, forbidden attraction between the sexes. But then, I’ve never much liked Ian McEwan’s work ever since he gave me nightmares with “A Child in Time.”

A meander round the inner suburb, starting for me at the Bay Horse on Blossom Street. Always a very local pub, except on race days, and quite cosy. The Deuchars was off but the Black Sheep was superbly kept, one of the best pints of Sheep I’ve had in a long while. Nearly opposite, the Mount was closed and advertising for a new manager, but nobody felt deprived as it was never a favourite. The Crystal Palace has a rather bright lounge bar, a bit like a 1950s living room with 150w bulbs, and full of well-dressed old people of both sexes chatting quietly. Our group was perhaps an atypical intrusion. But as it’s a Sam Smiths pub, the beer was extremely cheap. Finally, to the Fox, which has had its ups and downs but retains the two nice back snugs. Not quite as comfy a feel as it used to be, but OK.

…for the Exhibition, on Bootham, York. Very cosy feel, usually 3 or 4 real ales on tap, friendly staff, excellent pub food. Last night’s Guzzler from York Brewery was as excellent a pint as I’ve had anywhere.

Down through the woods to Hayburn Wyke – a favourite destination. The ferns in the wood surprisingly live and green for December – very different from the dead bracken of the moors. Stream had formed a pool on the beach below the small waterfall – would have been good for bathing in warmer conditions.
So, up to the cliff-top and a brisk walk to Ravenscar. Weather cold but no wind and visibility out to sea quite low. Dead calm. Along much of the way we looked down on the undercliff – a huge area of slumped cliff which has been colonised by woodland and scrub. It looked really inviting but revealed few access points from above. There was one possible path but it may well have been made by animals rather than humans. Sandwiches for lunch at the Raven Hall Hotel – beef and horseradish, and an acceptable pint of Theakston’s bitter. The chips were poor, though – oven chips I think. And so back along the old railway track, steadily downhill from the summit at Ravenscar, a tunnel now between overhanging trees which must have grown in the 40 or so years since the line was closed.