Number Seventy News

First, Exeter Youth Hostel is pretty good – especially the food and the local ale they have available.  Then there is an extremely pleasant walk along either the canal bank or the water meadows of the Exe from Countess Weir (where the YH is) into Exeter.  Started in the mist but the sun gradually broke through.  All the trees, bushes and greenery on the cusp of Spring.  Cormorants on the weir at Exeter wharf.

And Exeter in the afternoon was very pleasant.  A few people were pretending it was warm enough for continental cafe culture – and it nearly was – but the sun warmed the skin, certainly.  Inside the cathedral the sun was low enough to shine through the windows on the South side and illuminate the walls on the North – wonderful feeling of lightness.  Interesting memorials, including one which included a hint of unease in that it commended the deceased for an energy of mind unusual in the female ! One can only wonder.

Cross Country to Exeter.  I have yet to fathom how the on-line booking system knows how much it is going to annoy me to be allocated a seat behind a window pillar, but some gremlin in there likes to ensure minimum visibility. Train commendably on time, however.  The computer failed on the return, and I did have a window seat which included part of a window – and some scenery obligingly sunlit and pleasant. Train consisted of four coaches and hence was full and standing leaving Bristol, at which point the guard/conductor/train captain announced on the pa that this was due to the number of students going home for the weekend.  So, it’s the passengers fault rather than decades of underinvestment, Virgin’s incredible decision to replace 8 coach trains with 4 or 5 coach ones in a time of passenger number growth, and the lack of spare stock because of the system where trains are leased from sharks like RBS.  Renationalise say I !

And another day to Lincoln – change at Doncaster going and a pleasant potter across the flat fertile lands of Lincolshire on a one coach unit. Lincoln station has ticket barriers as do so many now – and no possibility of a platform ticket.  Return via a change at Newark and again at Doncaster.  Fair enough but the connections at about 15-20 minutes each (also at Doncaster on the way out) are ridiculously long compared to Holland and Germany and Switzerland, where they order these things much better.

Fibbers is very less than perfect, the Duchess nearly as lacking.  Admittedly there are more seats at the Duchess, though as some of them used to be church pews the comfort level must be low.  There are also some more comfortable looking chairs but like Fibbers, the audience numbers allowed in far exceed the number of available seats so it’s standing room mostly.  Not so good for a 2.1/2 hour concert.  And then the tickets say 7.30 start, the website says 8, and things finally get under way about 8.30.  Presumably this is to maximise the bar takings but when one also has to stand it adds insult to injury. And there was only one decent beer, Theakston’s XB, indifferently kept.

So why were we there ? For a concert advertised as Chris Drever, John McKusker and Roddy Woomble.  In fact Boo Hewardine and Heidi Talbot were there too.  Chris and John were great, especially when they were just playing together, but the other 3 didn’t add anything much to the evening.  John on fiddle, mandolin and whistle is so inventive, a pleasure to listen to, and Chris Drever is a wonderful powerful singer.  Boo seemed mostly asleep, Roddy’s style of singing and range of songs just don’t appeal, and Heidi seems pretty average for girl singers.  Sorry chaps – overall a pretty average experience.