"ELITE" vs "POPULISM"
Tuesday, October 01, 2019
Brexit and the Remain backlash: the reactionary use of language
Monday, September 30, 2019
Child abuse: breaking the chain
When I worked with Looked After Children there was a saying - apparently an old saw in this field: "All abusers have been abused, but not all who have been abused go on to become abusers."
Once you are tuned in to looking for it you'll find it's more common than you really wanted to know. It's even in what used to be a standard schoolroom read: "Quiet incest flourished where the roads were bad..." Laurie Lee, "Cider with Rosie" (1959).
What I didn't know until today is that Sigmund Freud addressed this issue in a lecture to colleagues in 1896 (1) and instead of acclaim "the donkeys gave it an icy reception." It was news they didn't want to hear.
Like metal-detector-wielding treasure hunters, those who look for truth sometimes have to wash off a lot of muck before they can examine their finds. In this case, I've learned a bit of the history of abuse denial by reading a Frenchman who seems to have it in for Jews - but unlike naive SJWs I don't expect to get all my information from completely untainted sources: Laurent Guyénot's "current research focuses on the religious and civilizational backgrounds of Zionist geostrategy" (2). Still, a fact is a fact and it appears from his article today in The Unz Review (3) that Freud's own father sexually abused his children, as Freud told a colleague:
"On February 11, 1897 (4), after mentioning that forced oral sex on children can result in neurotic symptoms, he adds: “Unfortunately, my own father was one of these perverts and is responsible for the hysteria of my brother (all of whose symptoms are identifications) and those of several younger sisters. The frequency of this circumstance often makes me wonder.” "
But, says Guyénot, Freud then backtracked and transformed the issue into one of childhood fantasy instead: hence the Oedipus Complex.
In 1932 one of Freud's followers, Sandor Ferenczi also postulated the reality of child sexual exploitation but when he presented his paper (5) to the 12th International Psycho-Analytic Congress in Wiesbaden he got the same cold treatment as his master: "Ferenczi was ostracized by Freud and his sectarian disciples, and his paper was never translated in English for the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, as was customary. He died a few years later, a broken man."
Now our French intellectual spins all this into a rococo condemnation of Jews and Jewishness and works it into a pseudo-psychological explanation of Israel's relations with its Middle Eastern neghbours and the USA.
But Laurie Lee's neighbours weren't Jewish, so far as I know; nor are all child abusers men, as we see in the UK's 2009 Plymouth child abuse case (6) [I wonder what had happened in the perpetrators' own childhoods?]
It's a horribly vexed issue, and of its nature hard to prove - especially if accusations are directed against the rich and powerful, as we have seen.
And abuse doesn't have to be physical to be harmful and long-lasting. Merely withholding affection from a child and constantly criticising it builds up a debt that the child will eventually seek to have repaid, if not by the parent (and how?) then by 'revenge' on innocent third parties (including their partners and offspring) and/or by self-hatred and various forms of self-harm.
Yet the worst, most systematic abuse case I encountered didn't drive the victim screaming mad. She was able to give evidence against her father that got him jailed; to normalise relations with her mother, who accepted her own complicity; and when asked to do her bit for a Christmas concert at the children's home, stood up and recited the Nicene Creed.
I felt like cheering.
__________________________________
(1) "The Aetiology Of Hysteria" https://www.freud2lacan.com/docs/The_Aetiology_of_Hysteria.pdf
(2) https://www.greanvillepost.com/2019/06/05/9-11-was-an-israeli-job/
(3) http://www.unz.com/article/freud-sexual-abuse-and-cover-up/
(4) Letter to Wilhelm Fliess, also quoted by PBS here: https://www.pbs.org/youngdrfreud/pages/analysis_doubts.htm
(5) "Confusion of the Tongues Between the Adults and the Child" http://icpla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Ferenczi-S-Confusion-of-Tongues-Intl-J-Psychoa.-vol.30-p.225-1949.pdf
(6) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Plymouth_child_abuse_case
Once you are tuned in to looking for it you'll find it's more common than you really wanted to know. It's even in what used to be a standard schoolroom read: "Quiet incest flourished where the roads were bad..." Laurie Lee, "Cider with Rosie" (1959).
What I didn't know until today is that Sigmund Freud addressed this issue in a lecture to colleagues in 1896 (1) and instead of acclaim "the donkeys gave it an icy reception." It was news they didn't want to hear.
Like metal-detector-wielding treasure hunters, those who look for truth sometimes have to wash off a lot of muck before they can examine their finds. In this case, I've learned a bit of the history of abuse denial by reading a Frenchman who seems to have it in for Jews - but unlike naive SJWs I don't expect to get all my information from completely untainted sources: Laurent Guyénot's "current research focuses on the religious and civilizational backgrounds of Zionist geostrategy" (2). Still, a fact is a fact and it appears from his article today in The Unz Review (3) that Freud's own father sexually abused his children, as Freud told a colleague:
"On February 11, 1897 (4), after mentioning that forced oral sex on children can result in neurotic symptoms, he adds: “Unfortunately, my own father was one of these perverts and is responsible for the hysteria of my brother (all of whose symptoms are identifications) and those of several younger sisters. The frequency of this circumstance often makes me wonder.” "
But, says Guyénot, Freud then backtracked and transformed the issue into one of childhood fantasy instead: hence the Oedipus Complex.
In 1932 one of Freud's followers, Sandor Ferenczi also postulated the reality of child sexual exploitation but when he presented his paper (5) to the 12th International Psycho-Analytic Congress in Wiesbaden he got the same cold treatment as his master: "Ferenczi was ostracized by Freud and his sectarian disciples, and his paper was never translated in English for the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, as was customary. He died a few years later, a broken man."
Now our French intellectual spins all this into a rococo condemnation of Jews and Jewishness and works it into a pseudo-psychological explanation of Israel's relations with its Middle Eastern neghbours and the USA.
But Laurie Lee's neighbours weren't Jewish, so far as I know; nor are all child abusers men, as we see in the UK's 2009 Plymouth child abuse case (6) [I wonder what had happened in the perpetrators' own childhoods?]
It's a horribly vexed issue, and of its nature hard to prove - especially if accusations are directed against the rich and powerful, as we have seen.
And abuse doesn't have to be physical to be harmful and long-lasting. Merely withholding affection from a child and constantly criticising it builds up a debt that the child will eventually seek to have repaid, if not by the parent (and how?) then by 'revenge' on innocent third parties (including their partners and offspring) and/or by self-hatred and various forms of self-harm.
Yet the worst, most systematic abuse case I encountered didn't drive the victim screaming mad. She was able to give evidence against her father that got him jailed; to normalise relations with her mother, who accepted her own complicity; and when asked to do her bit for a Christmas concert at the children's home, stood up and recited the Nicene Creed.
I felt like cheering.
__________________________________
(1) "The Aetiology Of Hysteria" https://www.freud2lacan.com/docs/The_Aetiology_of_Hysteria.pdf
(2) https://www.greanvillepost.com/2019/06/05/9-11-was-an-israeli-job/
(3) http://www.unz.com/article/freud-sexual-abuse-and-cover-up/
(4) Letter to Wilhelm Fliess, also quoted by PBS here: https://www.pbs.org/youngdrfreud/pages/analysis_doubts.htm
(5) "Confusion of the Tongues Between the Adults and the Child" http://icpla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Ferenczi-S-Confusion-of-Tongues-Intl-J-Psychoa.-vol.30-p.225-1949.pdf
(6) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Plymouth_child_abuse_case
Friday, September 27, 2019
FRIDAY MUSIC: Ian Anderson, by JD
But no, because, led by vocalist and songwriter and flautist extraordinaire Ian Anderson, they shot to the upper reaches of the 'hit parade' with a lyrical song in 5/4 time. That was unheard of, most R/R music is 4/4 with occasional waltz time (3/4) and the raw stuff in 2/4.
But it was no fluke because Anderson has subsequently enjoyed an illustrious career and proved his musicianship with jazz and classical as well as performing an interstellar duet with an astronaut! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Anderson
=============================================================
A late addition (second above) was Boris Dancing! Too good to resist even if it is about Boris Yeltzin and not 'our' Boris.
Wednesday, September 25, 2019
Brexit: Patriot Games
"He has put himself at the service of Britain. By proroguing Parliament he has appealed to democracy. He remains virtually the only dictator of modern times who, in the last resort, uses his power to defend democratic principles. Britain will undoubtedly go through great turmoil. In the end the will of the people will prevail. Those who had faith in Britain even during the dark days of the war can have faith now."
Of course, the quotation above is not about Boris Johnson - not de Pfeffel but de Gaulle; and it's not from now, but from the Paris rioting of 1968 (1). All I've done is alter a couple of terms.
In the same article, the writer - eminent historian AJP Taylor - says:
"I once heard a French historian say: "When English people are discontented they form a committee. When French people are discontented they make a revolution." I thought this rather exaggerated, but he turns out to have been right."
And so the piqued Top People have resorted to getting an opinion - a ruling on policy, not on law - from the "Supreme Court" as part of their subversive campaign. Committees, Parliamentary motions, legal rulings, appeals - as in "The African Queen", the very deckboards of the Constitution can be torn up and fed into the flames in the reckless dash towards antidemocratic servitude. The People must be kept down, at all costs.
Again and again, I read - and hear from friends - that releasing us from the EU is somehow a Conservative plot. Yet ten years before we finally entered the EEC (having been held off by de Gaulle while he nailed down the Common Agricultural Policy in favour of French farmers so that it would be unavailable to British ones as well), Professor Taylor clearly understood that getting us in was a Tory policy:
"The Common Market is, for the Government, an end in itself, which will automatically provide a solution for all ills. Conservative economic policy has been a failure. Instead of prosperity and expansion, there has been stagnation and the pay pause. [...]
"Once we are inside, Dr. Adenauer and President de Gaulle will reveal, in a kindly way, the secret of expansion. This is the height of absurdity as well as of evasion. For, just as the Government nerve themselves to take the plunge, expansion is ending in the Common Market countries.
"The move into the Common Market has been, from first to last, a confession by British Ministers that they did not know what to do. Originally it was a scheme for smuggling through devaluation of the pound, and hence reduction of wages, without anyone noticing. Now it is not even that. Entry into the Common Market is not a policy. It is a substitute for a policy. Its consequences, its implications, are never explained. [...]
"What else can a puzzled voter do except doubt and turn his back? He receives no guidance and much confusion from the Government. He receives equal equivocation from the Labour Party. Here too the same refusal to decide. The same refusal to state clearly the issues involved for and against. The failure of the Labour leadership to come out clearly against the Common Market has been the greatest lost opportunity of our time. It is this failure more than anything else which keeps the Government of Mr. Macmillan in office." (2) (emphases mine.)
________________________________________
(1) AJP Taylor: "Will Germany be the Next to Explode?" The Sunday Express, London, June 2 1968
(2) "Macmillan Has Not Found The Answer Yet", The Sunday Express, London, July 15 1962
Of course, the quotation above is not about Boris Johnson - not de Pfeffel but de Gaulle; and it's not from now, but from the Paris rioting of 1968 (1). All I've done is alter a couple of terms.
In the same article, the writer - eminent historian AJP Taylor - says:
"I once heard a French historian say: "When English people are discontented they form a committee. When French people are discontented they make a revolution." I thought this rather exaggerated, but he turns out to have been right."
And so the piqued Top People have resorted to getting an opinion - a ruling on policy, not on law - from the "Supreme Court" as part of their subversive campaign. Committees, Parliamentary motions, legal rulings, appeals - as in "The African Queen", the very deckboards of the Constitution can be torn up and fed into the flames in the reckless dash towards antidemocratic servitude. The People must be kept down, at all costs.
Again and again, I read - and hear from friends - that releasing us from the EU is somehow a Conservative plot. Yet ten years before we finally entered the EEC (having been held off by de Gaulle while he nailed down the Common Agricultural Policy in favour of French farmers so that it would be unavailable to British ones as well), Professor Taylor clearly understood that getting us in was a Tory policy:
"The Common Market is, for the Government, an end in itself, which will automatically provide a solution for all ills. Conservative economic policy has been a failure. Instead of prosperity and expansion, there has been stagnation and the pay pause. [...]
"Once we are inside, Dr. Adenauer and President de Gaulle will reveal, in a kindly way, the secret of expansion. This is the height of absurdity as well as of evasion. For, just as the Government nerve themselves to take the plunge, expansion is ending in the Common Market countries.
"The move into the Common Market has been, from first to last, a confession by British Ministers that they did not know what to do. Originally it was a scheme for smuggling through devaluation of the pound, and hence reduction of wages, without anyone noticing. Now it is not even that. Entry into the Common Market is not a policy. It is a substitute for a policy. Its consequences, its implications, are never explained. [...]
"What else can a puzzled voter do except doubt and turn his back? He receives no guidance and much confusion from the Government. He receives equal equivocation from the Labour Party. Here too the same refusal to decide. The same refusal to state clearly the issues involved for and against. The failure of the Labour leadership to come out clearly against the Common Market has been the greatest lost opportunity of our time. It is this failure more than anything else which keeps the Government of Mr. Macmillan in office." (2) (emphases mine.)
As to the "Supreme Court", that child of Blair's constitutional vandalism - it should go, and the Law Lords return.
________________________________________
(1) AJP Taylor: "Will Germany be the Next to Explode?" The Sunday Express, London, June 2 1968
(2) "Macmillan Has Not Found The Answer Yet", The Sunday Express, London, July 15 1962
Tuesday, September 24, 2019
Climate crisis? by JD
At the weekend the Mail Online had a headline about Greta Thunberg receiving a 'rock star' reception at the UN. Today (monday 23rd) the same Mail Online had two very different headlines: one was how Soros and all his money was supporting the 'climate crisis' hysteria and the other was about how Dinesh D'Souza compares Greta Thunberg to an Aryan poster girl used by the NAZIS (The story linking Soros to Thunberg has been removed since this morning)
But is there now a realisation that the relentless and fact free propaganda is nothing more than a 'sky is falling' scare story. A lot of stories and comments are emerging criticising the hidden agenda in all this. This video is just one of them-
At the end I laughed out loud, spluttering my tea all over....... Greta's middle name is Tintin! What!! What on earth possessed her parents to call her Tintin. I know there is a current fashion for daft names but...... Tintin?
But to be serious, as noted in the video, Greta's grandfather is Olof Thunberg. His Wiki entry says that he is related to the Swedish Nobel Prize winner Svante Aarhenius, possibly his uncle for Aarhenius' mother is a Thunberg.
Svante Aarhenius is well known as the 'father' of global warming far he first established how CO2 could combine with H2O to form carbonic acid in the atmosphere and it was this which retained the heat; thus global warming.
But he did not think that this was necessarily a bad thing and was probably beneficial and provided an opportunity to increase crop yields and bring agricultural production to areas of the world which are currently dormant.
"We often hear lamentations that the coal stored up in the earth is wasted by the present generation without any thought of the future, and we are terrified by the awful destruction of life and property which has followed the volcanic eruptions of our days. We may find a kind of consolation in the consideration that here, as in every other case, there is good mixed with the evil. By the influence of the increasing percentage of carbonic acid in the atmosphere, we may hope to enjoy ages with more equable and better climates, especially as regards the colder regions of the earth, ages when the earth will bring forth much more abundant crops than at present, for the benefit of rapidly propagating mankind." (p63)
https://www.goodreads.com/
Other sources are also asking pertinent questions or maybe impertinent questions, depends on your point of view.
"A workplace strike shows company owners and management that workers are able to harm them economically. A school strike, on the other hand, constitutes a form of self-harm, undertaken to attract adult attention. And the global school strike for climate is led by a girl with a long and tragic history of self-harm to her own body.
(Greta does not skip classes from just any school, but one for children with special needs. Many other Swedish families fight hard to get their children into such schools, because places are rare.)
And other sources are highlighting that the 'climate crisis' is just another way to increase the tax burdon on us all as well as being another part of the political desire to keep us all poor and stupid. (see links at end) The 'climate crisis' is also a good business opportunity for 'green entrepreneurs' to make a great deal of money. Who is Ingmar Rentzhog for example and what is his connection to Greta Thunberg?
“How is it possible for you to be so easily tricked by something so simple as a story, because you are tricked? Well, it all comes down to one core thing and that is emotional investment. The more emotionally invested you are in anything in your life, the less critical and the less objectively observant you become.” — David JP Phillips, We Don’t Have Time board of directors, “The Magical Science of Storytelling”
So in all this fog of misinformation who is right; the 16 year old school girl with Asperger's or her Nobel Prize winning great uncle?
==============================
'poor and stupid' -
https://vikingpundit.blogspot.
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/
https://muskegonpundit.
==============================
'poor and stupid' -
https://vikingpundit.blogspot.
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/
https://muskegonpundit.
The various links to http://www.poorandstupid.com/ all say - Not Found.
Looking at the products of our education system it is clear that the 'stupid' target has already been met; school leavers and college graduates have been taught to obey the system and not to think. That leaves the 'poor' target and that is getting ever closer!
Friday, September 20, 2019
FRIDAY MUSIC: Duke Ellington, by JD
Last week at the Proms there was an evening of music inspired by Duke Ellington's three concerts of sacred music.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/e5mz3d
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Ellington%27s_Sacred_Concerts
It was good but seemed to be less than inspired, lacking the passion and soul of the original concerts. The originals are available in full on YouTube and here is a selection from Duke himself and his peerless orchestra.
Swedish opera singer Alice Babs who features in several of the following videos deserves a special mention:
"Babs participated in performances of Ellington's second and third Sacred Concerts which he had written originally for her. Her voice had a range of more than three octaves; Ellington said that when she was not available to sing the parts that he had written for her, he had to use three different singers."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Babs
https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/e5mz3d
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Ellington%27s_Sacred_Concerts
It was good but seemed to be less than inspired, lacking the passion and soul of the original concerts. The originals are available in full on YouTube and here is a selection from Duke himself and his peerless orchestra.
Swedish opera singer Alice Babs who features in several of the following videos deserves a special mention:
"Babs participated in performances of Ellington's second and third Sacred Concerts which he had written originally for her. Her voice had a range of more than three octaves; Ellington said that when she was not available to sing the parts that he had written for her, he had to use three different singers."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Babs
Monday, September 16, 2019
A Very English Institution, by Wiggiatlarge
Anyone who thinks this is not worth a post will have to indulge me on this, it is a touchstone of that quintessential Englishness that survives by its fingernails in this modern day.
No doubt those who frequent the likes of McDonalds will pass this place by without a thought of what it represents, a last bastion of a rapidly disappearing age.
We came across it some years back when travelling the coast road in north Norfolk. Having failed to find a parking spot in nearby Cley-next-the Sea (pronounced Cly as in spy, yes and believe it or not there is a place called Cley Spy) we travelled on. All these small coastal villages are solid in the summer months and we normally go there out of holiday times and out of season.
But this time no, so we were looking for somewhere to stop and get a cup of tea and a bun and though we had passed this place numerous times had never stopped as it is not instantly appealing, and its placement means you are past it before you can make a decision to stop; but needs must so this time we made the effort.
The car park is a pretty good indication of what is to come: not exactly accessible and shared with the staff of the village school directly opposite. No space this time so we parked in the road of the T junction, itself a challenge as there is no pavement and you get out on the passenger side straight into a running ditch if not careful.
Everything about this place is of a time. The outdoor tables and benches have seen better days yet are full of on a sunny day of fellow travellers eating and drinking, yet it is when entering for the first time that you are taken aback by what appears to be not a cafe but an antiques shop, library and art gallery all in one untidy heap. After going there for years nothing seems strange any more, the half price book sale has been going on since that first visit and before, some of the 'antiques' gather dust with time and I have never seen anything sold but I could be wrong.
Several local artists have their works on the walls and unframed works and photos are in racks to browse through. I often browse these and they do sell as I notice certain favorite pieces are missing each time I browse.
The Old Reading Rooms is laid out with an entrance and food counter plus seating and tables and you then go through an arch to another room that has a divider of books and antiques down the middle, you really can’t escape anything in the back room. To the left is another room crammed with works of art, antiques etc in a totally shambolic arrangement, sort of early Tescos where all is shoved in your face, though in this case I don’t think that was the intention, more the case of finding a space and filling it.
The toilets are to the rear of this room at the back of a smaller room that used to have outdoor walking gear for sale - hats, shoes, coats, rainwear. Not much of that left now, a couple of all weather hats and a small asst of anoraks, perhaps this side of the business has not been a roaring success or just forgotten it is still there ? The gentlemen's toilet completes the tour: a long thin room with a hand basin on entry, then for reasons unknown a five-foot metal filing cabinet with a padlock, then the toilet. I have never had the nerve to ask about the placement of the filing cabinet, but I should for the sake of my sanity as every time I go there I ask myself why !
The real reason for any visit to the Old Reading Rooms is naturally not books, antiques or art works but the food and drink, and this is where it gets good. The display in the food cabinet gives a clue to what's on offer: all is made on the premises. You give your order to the always jovial Mine Host, ably assisted by family and some others in the high season; the tray of goodies is brought to your table, a table I might add covered in a plastic tablecloth depicting fruit from probably the fifties. All the chairs fail to match which gives the place a certain frisson; nothing is too much trouble for the owner who will get cushions for those with ‘problems’ and the like, without ever a hint.
To start you get a pot of tea of a standard rare these days, it actually tastes like tea and you get a pot plus hot water to give you about four cups should you need it. The food is on a fairly short menu: sandwiches, toasted sandwiches , panini, jacket potatoes, quiche, pasties (all their own), the list you can see in the photo, even the menu is utilitarian. But the cakes and puds are what make this place stand out - as I said, all made on the premises: deep filled apple pie, lemon meringue, cherry tart, and more; cakes are Victoria sponge, carrot cake, coffee and walnut, two types of chocolate cake and on and on, all are delicious all have that lovely moist texture and all come with cream if you so wish.
The story would not be complete without giving a run-down on the clientele. It has to be said that this part of Norfolk is full of retirees and many frequent this place, you can tell as all are greeted with first names and on occasions the people coming through the door resemble that outing in Reach For The Sky when the injured patients from the hospital go out to the tea rooms complete with plastered limbs and crutches. By the same token a lot of bikers use the place and others but mainly it is the older section of society, as myself these days, that know a good thing when they come across it and fill the tables on a regular basis.
It is always fatal to say there can’t be many places like this left, but reality says they must be a dying breed, rather like the clientele, still at least the cakes have been appreciated by many and with luck will be for some years to come.
No doubt those who frequent the likes of McDonalds will pass this place by without a thought of what it represents, a last bastion of a rapidly disappearing age.
We came across it some years back when travelling the coast road in north Norfolk. Having failed to find a parking spot in nearby Cley-next-the Sea (pronounced Cly as in spy, yes and believe it or not there is a place called Cley Spy) we travelled on. All these small coastal villages are solid in the summer months and we normally go there out of holiday times and out of season.
But this time no, so we were looking for somewhere to stop and get a cup of tea and a bun and though we had passed this place numerous times had never stopped as it is not instantly appealing, and its placement means you are past it before you can make a decision to stop; but needs must so this time we made the effort.
The car park is a pretty good indication of what is to come: not exactly accessible and shared with the staff of the village school directly opposite. No space this time so we parked in the road of the T junction, itself a challenge as there is no pavement and you get out on the passenger side straight into a running ditch if not careful.
Everything about this place is of a time. The outdoor tables and benches have seen better days yet are full of on a sunny day of fellow travellers eating and drinking, yet it is when entering for the first time that you are taken aback by what appears to be not a cafe but an antiques shop, library and art gallery all in one untidy heap. After going there for years nothing seems strange any more, the half price book sale has been going on since that first visit and before, some of the 'antiques' gather dust with time and I have never seen anything sold but I could be wrong.
Several local artists have their works on the walls and unframed works and photos are in racks to browse through. I often browse these and they do sell as I notice certain favorite pieces are missing each time I browse.
The Old Reading Rooms is laid out with an entrance and food counter plus seating and tables and you then go through an arch to another room that has a divider of books and antiques down the middle, you really can’t escape anything in the back room. To the left is another room crammed with works of art, antiques etc in a totally shambolic arrangement, sort of early Tescos where all is shoved in your face, though in this case I don’t think that was the intention, more the case of finding a space and filling it.
The toilets are to the rear of this room at the back of a smaller room that used to have outdoor walking gear for sale - hats, shoes, coats, rainwear. Not much of that left now, a couple of all weather hats and a small asst of anoraks, perhaps this side of the business has not been a roaring success or just forgotten it is still there ? The gentlemen's toilet completes the tour: a long thin room with a hand basin on entry, then for reasons unknown a five-foot metal filing cabinet with a padlock, then the toilet. I have never had the nerve to ask about the placement of the filing cabinet, but I should for the sake of my sanity as every time I go there I ask myself why !
The real reason for any visit to the Old Reading Rooms is naturally not books, antiques or art works but the food and drink, and this is where it gets good. The display in the food cabinet gives a clue to what's on offer: all is made on the premises. You give your order to the always jovial Mine Host, ably assisted by family and some others in the high season; the tray of goodies is brought to your table, a table I might add covered in a plastic tablecloth depicting fruit from probably the fifties. All the chairs fail to match which gives the place a certain frisson; nothing is too much trouble for the owner who will get cushions for those with ‘problems’ and the like, without ever a hint.
To start you get a pot of tea of a standard rare these days, it actually tastes like tea and you get a pot plus hot water to give you about four cups should you need it. The food is on a fairly short menu: sandwiches, toasted sandwiches , panini, jacket potatoes, quiche, pasties (all their own), the list you can see in the photo, even the menu is utilitarian. But the cakes and puds are what make this place stand out - as I said, all made on the premises: deep filled apple pie, lemon meringue, cherry tart, and more; cakes are Victoria sponge, carrot cake, coffee and walnut, two types of chocolate cake and on and on, all are delicious all have that lovely moist texture and all come with cream if you so wish.
The story would not be complete without giving a run-down on the clientele. It has to be said that this part of Norfolk is full of retirees and many frequent this place, you can tell as all are greeted with first names and on occasions the people coming through the door resemble that outing in Reach For The Sky when the injured patients from the hospital go out to the tea rooms complete with plastered limbs and crutches. By the same token a lot of bikers use the place and others but mainly it is the older section of society, as myself these days, that know a good thing when they come across it and fill the tables on a regular basis.
It is always fatal to say there can’t be many places like this left, but reality says they must be a dying breed, rather like the clientele, still at least the cakes have been appreciated by many and with luck will be for some years to come.
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