2004-06-29

This weekend I was entertaining a friend from Ottawa, an international man of mystery doing a work term in Barcelona. He adapted to British culture fairly quickly, notwithstanding some open-jawed incredulity at the bizarre spectacle of cars driving on the wrong side of the road. Then there was the equally freakish spectacle of Portland Street on a Friday night. Mancunian club-hoppers favour some decidedly questionable notions of fashionable dress: there�s nothing like the sight of a hundred and fifty pounds of pasty British flesh crammed into square inches of spandex casing � quite a far cry from the sleek, bronzed specimens populating Spain�s topless beaches, I should think. My friend can hardly be blamed for his odd shriek of abject horror.

Yesterday I got away from it all Victorian-style, doing a leisurely perambulation of Chester�s Roman walls. Chester is one of those places where every shop name should rightfully start with �Ye Olde�: Ye Olde Haberdashery�Ye Olde Sweete Shoppe�Ye Olde Starbucks�all very picturesque. Although seeing a genuine Tudor shop front with a Burger King in it is a bit like seeing a Rolls Royce with a pair of fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror.