construction?

Every day I check the progress on this.

I've just carried out today's check: there are four guys standing around chatting and leaning on some scaffolding.

Not sure where all their mates are...

In fact, there never seem to be more than a couple of people in each half-hourly shot.

Fingers crossed we're still on for August 2011...

into the belly of the white elephant

On Saturday afternoon I was privileged to spend a couple of hours exploring the derelict Clifton Rocks Railway on a tour organised through the Bristol Flickr group.

Back in the late 19th and early 20th centuries the underground funicular railway ran in a tunnel cut from the cliffs, taking passengers from Clifton, at the top of the Avon Gorge, to Hotwells and the harbour at the bottom (for trips on the pleasure steamers). Unfortunately, the railway was never a great success and closed in the 1930s.

During the Second World War the BBC sought to house an emergency headquarters in Bristol that would be used in the event of London's Broadcasting House being incapacitated. They earmarked the bombproof disused railway tunnel but, after a series of bombing raids, locals began using it as a shelter. The BBC instead created four chambers above each other at the bottom of the tunnel, featuring a studio (complete with piano) and transmitter, recording and control rooms.

The emergency studio never had to be used. The BBC's lease expired in 1960 and the railway was left to fall into a state of disrepair. A voluntary group now looks after what is left and have worked hard to make the site accessible for guided tours. They estimate the cost of total restoration as costing from £10-15 million.

Donning luminous jackets and hard hats we filed into the damp stairway that leads down from the old ticket hall and runs alongside the former railway tunnel. This had been sectioned off and seating installed when the tunnel served as an air-raid shelter. In fact, the tunnel barely gave any hints away to it's original use - the old train carriages and tracks had long been removed. At the lower end the former BBC rooms' floors had collapsed and were in total disrepair. Rusted old fuseboxes remained attached to walls and abandoned wartime drinks bottles could be seen in the shelters.

The tour took a good couple of hours, down through the tunnel to the bottom where a gate looks out onto the busy A4 carrying traffic between the docks at Avonmouth and the city centre; through rooms that looked nothing like they had a century ago. It was all absolutely fascinating. I should also add a note of appreciation to Maggie, the guide, who was incredibly knowledgable and had given her own time to be our guide for the afternoon. I felt lucky to be able to explore what, for most people, will only ever be seen in photographs (tours of the railway are very limited). I struggled with my 350D in the low light but have uploaded a selection of the more successful photos I took to Flickr.

There doesn't seem to be much will in the city for the railway to ever be fully restored. Certainly the cost seems very prohibitive. Even if it isn't I hope many more people get the chance to explore what remains and learn a little more about what has been called an exciting, eccentric white elephant...

jump!

This desolate-looking alcoholic Ronald McDonald has been a relatively recent addition to the Banksy versus Bristol Museum exhibition. Complete with a bottle of whisky, he sits perched precariously above the entrance to the city museum on Queens Road.

With only a few weeks left until the exhibition closes on 31 August, long queues continue to form on a daily basis. I've been getting a few hits from people Googling 'Banksy queue': the museum's website is warning people to be prepared to wait for up to 3 hours for admission (I'd be surprised if people are actually having to wait that long) and to join the queue in University Road by 2.30pm at the latest. If you're not from Bristol and you're thinking of seeing what all the fuss is about there's an excellent guide to the exhibition, including info on how to find the Museum, here.

My Flickr set of photos from the exhibition are here.

clean graffiti

In recent days this 'clean graffiti' has cropped up on pavements near where I live advertising a new burger bar in Cotham. Though I've been aware of this guerilla-advertising-type process for a while it's the first time I've seen it for real (the effect is produced using high-pressured steam cleaners over a stencil). I guess for branding purposes it works quite well (after all, here I am writing about it, though that's only because I've never seen it used before). Whether it'll convert into paying burger-consuming customers is another thing. We're in uni-land here, close to the Whiteladies strip, so if this stretch of paving hasn't reverted to its normal grubby state by October then I'm sure it'll get noticed by its target-market. I just wonder, though, if they've missed a trick by not stencilling direction arrows all the way down the street to the bar itself. Not that I condone the insidious reach of advertising into our everyday lives, but just an idea...

travels around Cornwall: Launceston to St Ives

At the end of July M and me headed down to Cornwall for a few days. Earlier this year we'd been invited to stay with M's sister. She lives a short distance from Land's End so we decided to take her up on the offer and slip in a night at a B&B on the way. After a bit of research we discovered a place in Boscastle run by a couple who happened to share our names. My name is fairly common, I suppose, but M's Cornish name (yep, she was born there) is far less so. To find a couple sharing our names meant we just had to stay there.

Our trip began in Somerset and the drive down through summer sunshine to Launceston took barely a couple of hours. We stopped for a break and a wander around this little market town which is overlooked by a Norman castle. With plenty of time before check-in at our B&B we drove west to Tintagel, a busy seaside village, parking for lunch near the imposing Camelot Castle Hotel on the clifftop. A footpath headed toward the coastline so we followed that round in a circle past the entrance to the ruins of the castle which is perched on top of an 'island' (or, more accurately, peninsula) that juts out into the Atlantic. As I had been when I first visited Cornwall as a child, I was struck by just how beautiful (and blue!) the sea was - so different to the grey/green of the south east where I grew up. It was a steep climb back to the car. After almost a year of living in Bristol it seems I'm still not used to hills...

Boscastle is only a short drive north of Tintagel and we had soon arrived at our B&B, the very friendly and welcoming Boscastle House. On our arrival we were treated to coffee and lemon drizzle cake - very unexpected but a nice gesture that set the tone for our stay. In the early evening we set off down the steep lane, bordered by beautiful cottages, that leads into the northern part of the village nestled in a valley around the picturesque harbour and scene of the disastrous flash flood of 2004. It was warm and sunny and holidaymakers were making the most of the summer evening. After some food we went for a walk along the river toward the natural inlet that protects the tiny harbour. With such steep hills surrounding the village it took no imagination to work out how torrents of rainwater, sweeping down from all sides, wreaked the havoc it did five years ago. To me, it felt as though we were cut off from the world; looking out to sea from the clifftop above the inlet added to the feeling that we were totally enclosed by the geography around us.

The following morning I experienced one of the most amazing breakfasts I can remember: it was too much for me to resist the [organic, locally-sourced] 'Full Cornish' (bacon, sausages, eggs, tomatoes, hogs pudding and toast) and I also managed to squeeze in an incredible homemade-marmalade muesli bar - for which I'd have gladly paid for the recipe. Alas, my hints got me nowhere...

By the time we were back in the car and on the road early rain showers had passed. We were heading south toward St Ives, a picturesque seaside town which has become renowned for its wealth of local artists as well as being home to Tate St Ives and the Barbara Hepworth Museum. It's not a car-friendly place by any means so we parked at St Erth and took a short train ride into St Ives on a route that wound it's way around the edge of the River Hayle estuary and bay via Carbis Bay, one of the places of M's childhood. It looked a beautiful place to grow up.

I vaguely remember visiting St Ives as a child, and the image I have is of palm trees in the rain. This time we were treated to warm sunshine and blue skies. Unsurprisingly, the small town was heaving with tourists. We took a leisurely stroll around the sandy harbour, through seaside lanes and sandy, narrow streets, passing numerous little art galleries, and walked up to the headland with its lookout station.

The biggest disappointment of our time away was paying heed to the weather forecast on the BBC website. It predicted showers or heavy rain for the entire time and, in the rush to pack our bags while entertaining M's brother's family, visiting from Sweden, left shorts and swimming gear firmly in the drawer. As it turned out the forecast couldn't have been more wrong (apologies for the source). Consequently, on seeing half the UK population having a whale of a time in the sea, M was faced with the prospect of having to buy a new swimming costume just to take a dip! So after a quick trip to the Tate St Ives shop and then a cream tea, we began the search. It didn't take long. M got her costume but I wasn't quite so brazen, and faced the embarrassing prospect of rocking up to the beach dressed for an ordinary workday in jeans and a shirt.

St Ives, with exotic palm trees everywhere, interesting streets and geography was very beautiful. But I couldn't help thinking I'd prefer to visit in the autumn or winter, when things are quieter and more relaxed. Perhaps a walk around the bay on a dark, wintry night...

In the late afternoon we caught a crowded train back to St Erth and headed south for Land's End to M's sister's and an evening performance at the stunning Minack Theatre, of which more soon...

Cornwall surfing

Been a bit slack posting here of late so, in the spirit of summer (and while I finish writing about our recent travels around Cornwall), here's a photo of surfers at a beach in St Ives...