I refer, of course, to the much-loved pastime of sitting on Holywell Hill, engine on, clutch half engaged, waiting for the lights to fleetingly turn green. You can look at the fancy radiators, the expensive kitchens and strain your eyes to read a Chinese menu; you can remind yourself that one day you must actually go inside the White Hart Hotel and look for a ghost. Surely I’m not the only person who thinks ‘Is that yet another new gents’ hairdresser?’ You can repeat this thought every few months as they seem to come and go pretty fast around there.
The best shop ever was the fish pedicure place a few years ago. You could sit in your car and soak up the carbon monoxide and wonder what sort of muppet goes in there. I did (go in, I mean). It was my birthday. I did it of my own volition. They put me in the prime window seat. A school bus stopped right outside. I was laughing at the fish; the kids were laughing at me; the fish were eating dead skin from my feet (I don’t think they were laughing, but how would one know with such tiny fish – or even with big ones). Anyway, it was my birthday treat to myself. Afterwards I went next door for lunch. Best cheese-stuffed whitebait I’ve ever had.
2. Barry Cashin
With a name like a third-rate pawn-broker, Barry is a living legend. Well, local at least. Hell hath no fury like a Barry scorned. So if you are a car driver, a cyclist, a breast-feeding baby, a noisy child, a parent, someone who has birthdays, someone with long (or short) hair, bald, or just minding your own business keeping yourself to yourself and quietly going about your daily life in St Albans, then sure as Barry rhymes with Gary, you’re in grave danger of one day incurring some Cashin wrath.
I don’t know if the local paper has a Leader Board to keep tabs on the most prolific senders of letters, but if they did, sure as Cashin rhymes with bashin’, Barry would top it.
Love him or loathe him, Bazza makes our top ten. (I’ll admit that I ‘like’ him, inasmuch as he spices up the Letters in the local rag and elicits ‘outraged’ responses from others.)
3. St Michael’s Folk Festival
If there’s a finer place to be every first Wednesday in July then I’m yet to find it. St Micky’s Folk Fest has it all: beer, Morris dancers, barbecues, swords, beer, bands, a dragon, a closed-off road, beer. Even though the number of pubs in that neck of the woods is falling fast, the Festival is the most quintessentially English summer’s evening out you could hope for. You should go. You really should.
I once saw the ‘off-duty’ dragon get its camera out and take a photo. ‘Nuff said.
4. St Albans Mums (or SAMs to use their abbreviated title)
No, not just mothers of St Albans, these women are a bunch of complete mothers. Ask Jeeves, Google, Teletext, your Great Aunty Joan – in their day these were trustworthy founts of all knowledge, but none – repeat none – came anywhere close to ‘St Albans Mums’.
SAMs is a Facebook group. You can (assuming you’re a mum, in St Albans, and accepted to join the group) ask a simple question – maybe you’ve a tricky social dilemma and would like a little help – and get up to 6,000 responses. Of course, any simple yes or no question will give you 3,000 in favour and 3,000 against so you’ll be none the wiser, but you’ll have got your thoughts out in the open and shared with kindred spirits which, after all, is what being a woman is all about, as far as I can tell.
So, if you’re unsure what to wear today (“Will it be cold?”); want to know if what your child does is normal (it is); or if what your husband does is normal (it isn’t); if you want to know if somewhere is open/closed or if anyone can recommend a cake maker (I can and I’m not even in the group) then whatever you do, whatever you do, don’t use your initiative or common sense; throw both of these out of the window and ask a bunch of local strangers. After all, it’s obviously better to crowd-source random opinions than think for yourself. And, yes, you should get that rash looked at.
5. “Any bowl for a pound”
Camden, Portobello, Brick Lane, Borough – there are many great markets, but if you need batteries, fitted blinds, almonds or large pieces of foam for fancy dress then St Albans is the place to head. Legally it should be “Contents of any bowl for a pound” because you don’t actually get to keep the bowl. Just sayin’.
6. St Albans armed forces
The frigate HMS St Albans is well-known – though I’ve not once seen it on the lake in Verulamium Park – but our other local unarmed forces are less well-equipped. Military fitness (or milfit for short) is a big thing in St Albans. If we’re ever invaded by marauding hordes from Hemel, then we can sleep easy, safe in the knowledge that we will be robustly defended by new mothers in numbered bibs and middle-aged men carrying kettlebell weights. No army does a star jump quite as well as our lycra-clad public park warriors. Although bibbed-up like a bunch of Year 7 girls at a netball tournament, these fitness enthusiasts are our territorial army-in-waiting. “We will fight them on the beaches”, or at least jog to that tree and back and then go for a skinny latte.
Our air defences are located on the outskirts of the city at RAF Chiswell Green. Should aggressors choose an air attack (only on still, summer days, please – early mornings or early evenings preferred) they would be repelled most defiantly by a squadron of hot air balloons (or is it just the same one seen lots of times?). Armed with champagne bottles, these Virgin beasts can fire corks at ranges of up to 5m.
7. St Albans Half Marathon.
Where else do you take part in a high-profile event at the mercy of blazing sun? Oh, yeah, Qatar. Everyone should do the half marathon. Not, obviously, at the same time otherwise there’d be nobody left to hand out cups of water.
One blazing June a few years ago, I was running down Bluehouse Hill, cup of water in hand when I spied someone in the sparse crowd I knew. He was facing the other way so, safe in the anonymity of a pack of runners, I threw the full cup at him and kept running.
I’d like to now apologise to the stranger who got soaked, as it later transpired that my friend wasn’t even watching the event that day. Sorry.
8. Westminster Lodge car park.
‘Build it and they will come.’ ‘Come and they will park.’ ‘Park and they will pay.’ ‘Pay and they will complain.’ ‘Complain and they will be Cashin.’
9. CAMRA
Easy to ridicule, I know, and as a white-sock wearing, Capri-driving native of urban Essex, I love a stereotype, but you have to admit that as pressure groups go these guys have done a pretty good job over the years. (Real ale is presently in rude health). Plus, what other campaigning group allows you to drink your own bodyweight in beer each week all in the name of research.
Based on Hatfield Rd within a limp arm’s reach of a Cornish pasty from Morrison’s bakery counter, CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) is St Albans born and bred.
I know that it’s probably only a question of time before I join their swelling (in more ways than one) ranks. Beer. Real beer. What’s not to like. Plus, it’s just dawned on me that my enjoyment of Morris dancing and CAMRA would go pretty-much hand in hand.
10. The Alban Arena
Confession: I love the Arena. Top (mostly) entertainment within walking distance of my house. I go a lot. Ok, so I might be a bit less selective than I would be if I had to schlep into London to watch something. Why the Arena can’t link number of tickets sold and type of event to number of bar staff on duty is beyond me. The amount of revenue lost by people giving up queuing for drinks and popping out to the Wendy Barn instead must be huge. And think just how desperate people like me must be to view a Wetherspoons as any form of ‘better option’.
My wife asked me last December about Arena tickets I might like as a Christmas present. I gave her a list of ten comedians. Ranked in order of preference. Unfortunately, she’d already bought me some tickets. The show she’d bought (Paul Merton/improv) didn’t even make my top ten. Her risk. My loss. The only thing that would’ve been worse would have been any show on ice. ON ICE? Why the ice? I don’t get that. Thing is, with a young daughter I fear that prospect is heading my way some time soon.