Stars of the show in Bath right now are King Bladud’s Pigs of which there are 100 to spot and photograph (or climb on, if you happen to be a small child).
Bath has been inspired by the Cow Parade, which hit Manchester in 2004 as part of a world tour, and the local legend of an ancient king forced to live as a swineherd on account of his leprosy, which was miraculously cured by the waters of the Celtic god Sul. These waters were rededicated 1,000 years later to Sulis Minerva (a kind of religious co-branding) by the Romans and jump forward a couple of millennia and yours truly could be found having a dip.
We only managed to photograph 23 pigs, although we saw quite a few more from the car, but the real disappointment was not being able to buy a small replica. Bath Aqua Glass offer limited edition King Bladad piglets (we own number 67), but it’s not the same thing. It turns out organisers are worried people might sell them on eBay… so what if they do?
Bath is a congested little city with little sign of the local authorities getting a grip.
Apparently there is a park-and-ride, but it’s not signed on the way in, so Bath relies on high parking fees to keep the poorer people out.
But it wasn’t the parking fees that wound me up today. It was the reliance on these antique pay-and-display machines to collect £12 in coins. They were fine in the days when you could park all day for 50p, but now we need machines that take notes and credit cards.
The local leisure centre gives change, although staff are rude. Hang around a car park for a few minutes and you’ll recieve no end of requests for change and offers of parking tickets with time to run.
Friday afternoon and we’re pinned down by a shower in Bath. Oh the irony. The challenge is to get into No.1 Royal Crescent, but first there’s a pay-and-display machine to be fed.
Worse Katharine just had a pedicure at the oasis of calm that is the Royal Crescent Hotel. Restricted to flip-flops (footwear we reckon should only be seen on the beach or at the poolside) until dry she dare not move.
But flash forward to today and after a grey start, it’s been all a summer should be. Uploaded by mobile phone to Stephen Newton’s diary of sorts
Up until its appearance on Mary Queen of Shops, Chorlton menswear shop HT Burt was not a place anybody below retirement age would give a second glance, but I’ve just paid them a two visits in just a few weeks.
The draw is not the Hackett, though I do like Abercrombie & Fitch, but a good selection of very contemporary limited edition Van Buck ties. Sadly Van Buck’s website is a bit rubbish and fails to show the ties in all their glory, but I promise you will get comments.
And, given that tie wearing isn’t as fashionable as it used to be, a tie should be a talking point. There’s little point giving up the comfort of an open neck for the sake of something nobody notices. Ties almost certainly do convey a degree of seriousness, but they need not, as the FT’s Emma Jacobs argues, signal that the wearer is inherently conservative. Those without ties may be simplistic followers of fashion.
Anyway, back to HT Burt and Mary Portas, aka Mary Queen of Shops. It’s great TV, populist reality programming with a laudable business twist, but like most formats with a rigid programme template you eventually get the sense that you’re watching the same thing over and over.
It tends to turn out that the great guru has just one simple formula that she applies to all. In the case of Mary Portas, it’s use your connections to secure a deal with a trendy brand, here it was Hackett, and others will follow. But not only would it not have occurred to HT Burt to make an approach like that (hence the need for Mary), they would never have persuaded Hackett to supply them if Mary Portas hadn’t been involved.
So the wider lesson to the viewing public is that it’s not what, but who you know that counts… although you can always hire Mary yourself.
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