Posted in August 2010

Great Britain Visit England

Source: Kim Mutton
Thursday 12th August 2010, 2:12pm

Calling all travellers from around the world - visit some of England's finest towns.

Top UK Destinations

Visit Britain - thats the message being spread around the world by airlines keen to boost the passenger numbers on their UK flights

Milton Keynes (Middle of Nowhere)

I saw Milton Keynes — local nickname “City of Dreams” — by bicycle. While people poke fun at the New Town’s endless roundabouts and grid-road system, I found it to be one of the greenest and most pleasant of all the places in Unsung Britain. The top attraction is Bletchley Park, the base of Britain’s Second World War code-breakers. I also tried my hand at indoor skydiving at thecentre:mk. This mall has tenpin bowling, a ski slope, endless shops and the famous concrete cows. There were buzzing restaurants and bars, and the trendy Milton Keynes Gallery.

Croydon (London)

I was, I think, the only tourist in Croydon — perhaps the least likely place for “holidaymaking” out of all my trips. A tourist official even admitted: “One of the most difficult questions I get is, ‘I’ve got three hours to kill in Croydon, what can I do here?’ ” I ended up having an interesting couple of days, going to the Croydon Airport Visitor Centre (to learn about the heyday of Croydon airport, when it was the main airport for flights into London, with Charlie Chaplin passing by), Addington Palace (a former summer house of the archbishops of Canterbury), and a nightclub with an anti-stabbing strategy that involves taking your fingerprints before entry. A strange weekend.

Salford (Manchester)

With its International Airport bringing in many UK visitors via direct flights to Manchester this Northern city seems to get all the attention, but Salfordians think that’s unfair. They’re right. The Lowry Centre on Salford Quays contains a splendid gallery of L. S. Lowry’s works. There’s also the Working Class Movement Library, with artefacts from the days of industrialisation. This is just down the street from the Crescent pub, where Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels are said to have met regularly. Round the corner there is Salford Lads Club, a hotspot for fans of the Smiths because it is on the sleeve of their 1986 album, The Queen is Dead.

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Waiting for Change

Source: Kim Mutton
Wednesday 4th August 2010, 5:26pm

The hours men spend waiting outside women's changing rooms.

This isn’t going to be one of those general rants about women and shopping, about how you have to traipse behind them, shop after shop, only to return, inevitably, to the first shop and the first pair of shoes. This is much more specific — it’s about changing rooms and the time lost in them. My heart sinks the second I realise that the first item she has picked up isn’t going back on the rails any time soon. Any hope of this being a swift visit is lost when a second item enters the equation, meaning endless changes between the two. A third item follows, then a fourth, by which point she has ceased to ask my opinion, the “maximum 3 items” sign may as well be written in Swahili, and my afternoon is ruined.

I know what’s in a men’s changing room — a mirror, a coat hook and, if you’re lucky, a stool for a little sit-down. Given the time my wife spends trying on clothes, hers must contain a fleet of stylists, on hand to give 20-minute tutorials on, maybe, how to buckle a belt.

Meanwhile, I stand outside with the other hapless menfolk, sweating in overheated shops, like sherpas, weighed down by their shopping, trying not to look uncomfortable while forced to linger in the M&S women's underwear and lingerie section (why must it always be next to the changing rooms?).

I recently clocked up 34 minutes outside a changing room — 34 minutes spent assessing five items that had an approximate value of 1/2,000 of the flat we recently purchased which we spent a grand total of 20 minutes viewing. If the amount of time spent surveying the flat had been proportionate to the time spent trying on new dresses and clothes, we would have moved in with the vendors for a cosy month before making an offer. “But you don’t have to wait there,” she cries. “Stand outside, get some air.” But I do have to wait there. At any time I may get called upon in that shouted whisper when she pokes her head around the curtain, underwear clad from the waist up or down, waving some garment at me: “Pasty, Pasty, see if they have this in a 12. It’s the last one I’m trying on, then we’ll get lunch, I promise.” Which is a whole other minefield of indecision.

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