Oh, We Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside

Just to bring you up to speed now that Blogger has managed to get its trousers on the right way round:
Our Lynn from Cheltenham Daily Photo is staying in Norfolk for a bit. She's caring for her Mum and Dad; her Mum's been ill and her Dad's been in hospital for an op, but thankfully they are both on the mend.
Anyhoo, Lynn came for three days and has been stuck here for weeks, so we've been having some fun together (Lynn's joined the Saturday Breakfast Gang) and enjoying little excursions to distract her from worries and chores.

As for where we went last weekend, Vanda suggested a circus and Petrea a gay bar and I must confess this place combines the two. For we return to the heart of kitsch-crappy, tourist-tacky cultural desolation that is Great Yarmouth.

Ah, tristesse …
When I was a wee laddie, this beach at this time of the year was so packed with people that you had to tread on them to reach the sea.

No takers for the deck chairs

And only a single … er … sunbather, avoiding the rays.




What on earth has happened to the traditional seaside holiday? Where are the queues waiting to use the beach huts?

Whither the kids clamouring for their turn at the telescope?

Aha! Some sign of life! A busy shopgirl rushed off her feet by the crowds fighting to purchase buckets, spades and windmills.

Sqwawk!

At least there are fresh doughnuts. Yummy!
More from Lynn and myself later.
Oh, and please come to the beach for your holidays and liven the place up. It's like a bloody morgue down here.

Guess Where We Went At The Weekend?

The answer to the title's question together with explanatory photographs may well follow at some point.

500 Words XLVIII - May's Assignment

Hokay … Short of poking you sharply up the bottom with your own pencils, how do I encourage you story writers to actually write stories?
I tried a change from weekly to monthly assignments and from quotations to photographs but to no avail. So - to highlight my own lack of imagination - I shall now combine the two in the vain hope that one or more of you will tell me a story.
For May's assignment you have a choice between basing your story on my chosen photograph or on a specific line from literature. If you're really up for it you could try both, either singly or together.
Also, the deadline will be two weeks from today, to give you less time to forget all about it.

This assignment's photograph is another one I took in Paris, though with no Eiffel Tower in it you could of course base your story anywhere.

If you don't fancy the photograph, the alternative is a quotation is from Jorge Luis Borges' short story, "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" and it is: "Some limited and waning memory of Herbert Ashe, an engineer for the Southern Railway Line, still lingers in the hotel at Androgué, among the effusive honeysuckle vines and in the illusory depths of the mirrors."

The rules are the same as they've always been. Five hundred words - no more and no less - inspired by and incorporating either the quotation or reference to the photograph.
Oh, and don't rely on Word's dumb word count as it counts "…" among other punctuation as a word. And don't write any sentences as confusing as that one, either.
I've already written one story based on the photograph, which you can find in the usual place, should you wish.

Gird your pencils and go for it.

500 Words XLVII - This Month's Story

Sheesh!
Giving writers a deadline a month long was obviously a bad move. You guys are worse than Charlie Brown when it comes to homework. Give you a whole month and you resolve to write something at midnight on the night before it's due to be handed in and then you fall asleep and forget.
Actually, that used to be my tactic at school, too …

So … in case any of you have a guilt trip and decide to rush into class late, brandishing a story with the edges all torn from where a dog tried to eat it, I shall leave April's story assignment open and will post any late stories if and when I receive them.

In the meantime, you're stuck with just the one story this month:
Dive's 'An Englishman In Paris'

… in which I bewail the fate of the English abroad, make an excellent decision regarding weemen and moan on and on about my private Parisian bugbear: viz. that in the world's most beautiful and vibrant city, rather than pave their paths properly they strew cat litter everywhere, and it ruins my shoes.

May's assignment will be posted later today. The deadline will be tighter. You have been warned.

WTF Monday

Ah, the joys of the saleroom. This little gem from 1963 was nestling in a box of LPs from the likes of Elvis and Dean Martin. Fortunately for my sanity I was outbid on this occasion.

Lair Of The White Wisteria

The white wisteria outside St.Michael at Plea on Queen Street in Norwich always comes out about two weeks later than the purple wisteria outside St.Giles (see this post from a couple of weeks back).

So for those of you who aren't yet sick of my photos of wisteria, here it is:

Veggie, Chicken, Seafood, Pepperoni

 Random photo, number whatever - I lost count.

Spring is apparently time for paella on Norwich Market.
Michelangelo's Hand of God chooses seafood.

Yum!

Does There Have To Be A Reason?

My favourite counter in Digby's hand-made chocolate emporium.
Contrary to rumour I don't ONLY go in there to be waited on by pretty girls in little black dresses and long white gloves.
Though it helps …

500 Words XLVII - Final Warning

Just a reminder: your 500 Words assignments for April are due in this week.
Here's the assignment in case you've forgotten.
Those of you who leave their homework until after midnight the day before it's due in should sharpen your pencils now.

Ding Dong, etc …

Boy howdy, I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when the head of Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence got the call this morning. I imagine he must have comprehensively soiled himself. A lot of people over there are going to need several changes of underwear over the coming week.

I deplore triumphalism but I think I'll have to forgive US celebrations today.
For once, Western intelligence services appear to have shown signs of intelligence. So hearty congratulations to them, the US special forces team who went in and did the deed and to President Obama for his almost non-triumphalist announcement of the fact.
Speaking as someone who was travelling on the train immediately in front of one of the 7/7/05 London tube bombs, all I'll say is payback is indeed a bitch, Mr. bin Laden.