Picture from Trip Advisor

Apart from the recording of the podcast I had a bit of a day off today which involved a spot of record shopping and a breakfast. The much mentioned breakfast podcast will not be going ahead as I don't really see what can be gained from it; I pay for the food out of my own money, not that I would use the PayPal fund for it, and put out a free podcast hoping for donations. To make a breakfast podcast viable I would have to make the money I spent in the cafe to break even. With filming projects finally starting to see the light of day I need to focus on the jobs that are going to be of some use. Not that I don't enjoy doing podcasts, (as a listener I am starting to listen to podcasts more than traditional radio thanks to the convenience of having them there when you want to), but I am conscious of spreading myself too thinly. I also have no objection to putting out free stuff but some things cost money to make so it is nice when people show their appreciation  by way of a donation, it's as if I was a busker and the PayPal button is my upturned hat or open guitar case. Besides, I am keeping a close eye on why it was that Leftlion suddenly started asking Facebook followers about breakfasts. I suspect that their food page will have a section devoted to this in their next issue and although they are free to do so as I can't copyright the idea of writing about something, it is a bit of a kick in the teeth that this was an opportunity for a paid gig that I would use to boost the PayPal account. I did consider setting up a separate page for breakfast critique but I have enough blogs to maintain so I will just be writing about it on this main blog and you can access them by clicking the 'breakfast reviewed' tag in the list below.

The point is that I had an all day breakfast today for the first time in a while. Saturday has become a working day for me and this isn't something I wanted to happen as I do a bit of work on Sunday and always try to keep Saturday clear as Mandi and I can then have a day together. Every now and again Mandi volunteers to work on Saturday and chooses to go in for a few hours in the morning so I stay at home in my office to catch up, even though we go out about two o'clock we are still not spending the entire day together.

We decided to indulge in that favourite pastime of combing through charity shops for books and records, this time we chose Hucknall, a market town just a short tram ride away. My vinyl haul wasn't my best (a BBC spin-off LP of the radio comedy I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again) but I did manage to get some additions to my clown collection. Not only that but today I seemed to have several of my obsessions catered for; a ghost sign, an ice-cream van decorated with badly painted cartoon characters, a woefully poor use of apostrophes, and an all day breakfast, it's as if the silly part of my brain had woken up and needed feeding. Some of the photos were taken in Bulwell as we popped through there on the way home. 

For breakfast we chanced upon a place called The Sweet Cafe, part old fashioned sweet shop and part cafe. I had already had a bad feeling before we even found a seat, maybe I imagined that the breakfast would be moulded out of the stuff they make seaside rock out of like you can buy in any tacky seafront shop. The breakfast itself was pleasant enough but for £5.50 you didn't really get a great amount of food. On a rectangular plate (this craze for anything other than a round plate really gets on my tits but at least it wasn't served on a block of wood) the breakfast consisted of two rashers (grilled unfortunately), two sausages, one fried egg, beans, mushrooms, a cooked tomato, and two slices of toast. It sounds reasonable but everything was served in small piles on the plate and you had to pay extra for a cup of tea, something that should always be included. While the place was clean and the staff were competent, I felt short changed by this attempt at a full English and probably won't use the place again unless I fancy some cola cubes.

Some research of Hucknall would have been useful as a few doors down from The Sweet Cafe was a proper greasy spoon of a place that no doubt did a better fry up.

Listen to this week's edition of The Sunday Alternative here.

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March housekeeping 

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Picture from Pictures of England

This year hasn’t been especially easy for me as I haven’t seen my daughter since Christmas and as you can imagine (particularly if you’re a long time reader of my blog and recall how much fun we used to have together) this has had an effect on my general happiness. She moved to Scotland last year and although we talk on the phone most days, and message on Facebook, it hasn’t been easy. Emily is on half term now and has returned to Teesside on a family visit, so I took the journey I haven’t done for a long time up there to see her for the night.

My first port of call was my maternal granddad, who I haven’t seen since my nana’s funeral in February. My guilt at not seeing enough of him soon faded away when he invited me in. he said he understands that I can’t just pop and see him. Apart from the pre-funeral meet up, this was the first time I had seen the house without my nana in it. Memories of childhood came flooding back, all of them happy.

Emily was pleased to see me, which was a weight off my mind. I took her to Saltburn with the intention of going out for a meal. She had decided that she wanted to have an Indian meal and recommended a nice restaurant. Once in Saltburn we had a walk along the pier and caught up with our news, and had a lovely chat about old times. Even though we don’t see a lot of each other it is nice to know that we can fall into this sort of day and enjoy each other’s company. Of course the love between us is still there, but given Emily’s age it was heartwarming that she has such a fond recollection of our past. I am proud of the fact that I gave her a happy childhood full of activity and I wasn’t just an access dad who took her to McDonald’s once a month and that we actually got to know each other. Emily still has the sense of humour she has always had, a sense of humour similar to mine. She has developed a slight Scottish accent but laughed with me at my lighthearted piss taking when I replied with a cartoonish “hoch-aye the noo”. Giving as good as she got, she asked if I had OCD about taking photographs of ghost signs when I spotted a few in Saltburn (you can see them on my Facebook page). I replied that it isn’t just ghost signs but spelling mistakes and other things too, at which point she added my collection of Disney paintings on ice-cream vans and asked if I really thought that the ice-cream sellers were going to kill me. When I challenged her about reading my blog she hit me back with “sometimes, but some are boring”, the girl has a point.

The meal was lovely and what it nicer was how grown up it was, a million miles away from the Wacky Warehouse and the pre-dinner hour in the ball pool. Emily ordered for herself and asked about the strength of various dishes. It was a nice restaurant too and didn’t treat Emily as a child, which she isn’t really. As much as I still think of her as my baby girl, she has grown up into a wonderful young woman and I couldn’t be prouder of her.

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With Mandi not working overtime today, we took Jack for a walk by the canal. We had originally intended to walk to Trent Bridge and let Jack off his lead at the embankment but it started to rain so we made our way through town, doing a little shopping on the way. I had my camera with me as usual and managed to snap a few new ghost signs like this old Shipstones Brewery one that was left behind an abandoned pub.

It wasn’t an especially nice pub to be honest, I’m sure that it was once upon a time though. Something should be done to protect these little reminders of the past, when things were a bit better. Some of these signs I come across are hardly visible and some are in a very poor state. Shipstones is a fondly remembered brewery in Nottingham, although a lot of the nostalgia is a rose-tinted hark back to the days before real ale was a real thing. Most people remember Shipstones for its laxative quality. Despite that, Nottingham Council should be looking around these old pubs and doing something productive to save these signs especially considering their historic value. Then again, Nottingham Council’s attitude towards anything of historic value is to knock it down and pretend it never happened.

Talking of which…

This is all that remains of one of the best ghost signs that Nottingham had. It’s thanks to the careless attitude of the contractors working on the tram line extension that it is now gone. This is what it looked like before.

Just the size of this sign alone should have been enough to preserve it for future generations to wonder what a draper was.

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If you’ve enjoyed reading this, please consider showing your appreciation by way of a donation using the PayPal button above this blog. Every penny will be used to create free online content. There are currently plans underway for a comedy sketch series, an online cookery and music show, a video version of The Sunday Alternative, and plenty more including documentaries, short films, and podcasts.

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I was sidetracked this morning by a rather interesting ghost sign for my collection.

You can see from the shading that a newer brick has been used to patch up an old shop to make a house. There was a time when these terraced rows would have had a local shop on every corner.

I can see that this premises was once a draper, something that there was obviously once a demand for as there is another draper's ghost sign only two minutes away from this location. What I can't understand though, is that there seems to be another ghost sign over the top of it. It was perhaps painted over and the ravages of time and weather have revealed the original.

 
Or the person who paid for the advert had a lot to sell and very little space.

I noticed this plaque today for the first time. It obviously interested me because of my interests in the history of Nottingham, and the changes that have occurred. This plaque isn't enough, why has there not been an apology yet?

 

This doesn't really qualify as a ghost sign, but it is of interest. The main thing about this is the fact that this is such a small building to be housing a bank. The Midland Bank ceased to be in 1999, and one assumes that the houses, flats and offices down this road were small shops that utilised the service of a small friendly bank.

As a pay off for the clothes shopping, I dragged Emily into a Nottingham institution that all music lovers make a regular pilgrimage to. We hit Rob's Record Mart, and I commented to Rob that it was nice to see the mess coming back after the massive tidy up. I bought four LPs, and to help the environment I took my own bag in, if only to embarrass Emily.

Wouldn't this make a brilliant album cover?

Ghost Signs