Nothing has stirred up as much strength of feeling so far on Normal for Norfolk as my previous post on Great Yarmouth (http://normalfornnorfolk.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/a-tour-round-norfolk-great-yarmouth.html). I must confess to having written the piece based on experiences from my childhood and hearsay. Much of this has come from pupils at the school where I teach, many of whom come from Yarmouth themselves and it was a former pupil who first introduced me to the nick name 'Not so Great Yarmouth'.
Apparently the rather nightmarish seaside resort of my childhood (we used to get dragged there on Sunday School outings) has cleaned up its act a lot. So, in order to do justice to the 'New and Improved' Great Yarmouth, I felt I should produce a 'New and Improved' review.
Some of my ramblings would remain the same, even in the light of glowing reports from friends and family. I still maintain, for example, that 'premier' is a bad choice of word to use in any attempt at positive marketing and that we cannot possibly claim to have dry and sunny weather all year round.
However, I have been urged to visit Yarmouth to sample the delights of greyhound racing (literally rather than metaphorically going to the dogs for a change; at least it wasn't going to pot), riding on the snails (much like getting a Sanders bus to work I should imagine) and visiting the Nelson museum. Apart from Stephen Fry and 'Alan Partridge' I suppose Nelson is the only famous Norfolk person we can boast.
So, maybe Norfolk's Premier Beach Resort is worth a sneaky visit after all. By the way, no one has come forward in support of the Merrivale Model Village so I assume that is just as I described it in my last post?
Yesterday while I was blogging about Alan Partridge, it was announced that the new Royal Baby was to be called George Alexander Louis. They are all lovely names but I have to say that I shall always associate the name George with the rather dopey hippo from the children's series 'Rainbow'. The programme had as its main characters three strange puppets, 'George, Zippy and Bungle'. George was the most likeable of the three; as I recall a pale pink, mild mannered hippo. I have no idea what creature Zippy was meant to be, but he was loud mouthed and opinionated, and Bungle, a huge bear would definitely have had his name on some teddy blacklist believe me.
So, what other famous Georges does the new little prince share his name with? Well, there is George Osborne the chancellor, an arrogant, privileged man who has zero idea how much misery he is inflicting on most of the country; or if he does realise, he doesn't care. The only time he has shown any emotion was when he shed a tear at Thatcher's funeral, but that was probably only because he was thinking about the astronomical bill.
Then there is George Michael who can sing quite nicely but can't drive in a straight line and has a penchant for hanging around outside men's toilets.
Next we have George Best who was pretty good at football but unfortunately also rather good at drinking.
Finally, how proud would you be to share your name with that greatest of all men George W Bush? Not very? No, thought not. With parents so unimaginative that they gave you the same name as your father it's not a good start in life is it? Apparently George W doesn't drink but that hasn't stopped him saying and doing stupid things on a monumental, world-wide scale.
So, if you were the young prince looking for a role model which one would you go for? My money's on the hippo.
So, Alan Partridge has arrived in Naarch (a roite foine ci-ee) for the premier of his film. I for one am jolly pleased that he eventually decided to show it here first, as it gives me something else to write about. I don't actually have a huge amount to say about Alan Partridge, except that he is very funny, but I saw that he and Norwich were on the news and trending on Twitter and thought, "There's a bandwagon; I'll jump on it". It's a dog eat dog world this blogging lark. You've got to be ruthless.
What I can talk about at some length and with not inconsiderable authority however, is the cinema where the film is to be screened. I went there a couple of years ago with Bryn to watch Horrid Henry. All I can say is I hope they've given it a bit of a clean and a lick of paint recently. Now, I am not exactly house-proud or overly concerned about my surroundings being pristine, but I don't much like it when my feet stick to the floor or my seat gives off a cloud of dust when I sit on it. There were pieces of antique popcorn on the floor of the foyer and the cinema, and the toilets were lavishly graffitied with all manner of interesting information about the sexual predilections of Sprowston High's year 10 girls. At least the pic 'n' mix was cheap.
Anyway, I notice that they have very inconsiderately named the new Prince of Cambridge whilst I've been writing this, so I suppose Alan Partridge is now whatever the modern-day equivalent is of 'tomorrow's chip wrappers'.
