Just the 52 of us, me and him, and him and him and her…..

We (Me and Him) were sitting in the AL3 WTF Research Centre aka “The Hub” (or something that rhymes with that) the other day and noticed that our Facebook page had just passed 50 likes.

52 to be exact.

52! That’s one for every week of the year, the number of playing cards in a standard deck, the number of white keys on a piano, the international dialling code for Mexico and the atomic number of the element that an old school pal used to call “Tell-your-mum”*.

52! That’s 50 more than the two of us ever expected.

You, our Facebook followers, you are our Spartans! 
Only there’s not 300 of you and you (probably) don’t have shields or big spears.

Snorbanites! Prepare for glory!

“This is blasphemy! This is madness!

Madness…?

THIS IS SNORBANS!”

And this is AL3 WTF’s first ever (and quite possibly last) competition.

It’s simple.

There are two judges.

Just the two of us, Me and Him.

Write a caption for this picture.


Just stick your caption in the comments with your email or email us via the envelope thingy top right of the page or, if you really don’t want to scroll up, just email us here AL3WTF@gmail.com.

The one that amuses us (Me and Him) the most will win a prize.

In the (quite likely) event the judges can’t agree there will be two prizes.

We can almost hear you squealing now “What’s the prize?!, What’s the prize?!”

Well that would be telling but, it will be unique or, in the event of disagreement between Me and Him, one of a (very nearly) unique pair.

Final date for entries is 31/05/2015.Winning name(s) may be published, judge’s decision is final, blah de blah de blah blah blaah.

Oh yeah – you can tell your friends and friends of friends that they can enter too but, rest assured, they will never have the A-Lister status of you, “The 52”, for 

          “Tonight we dine in (enter name of favourite St Albans eaterie here) !!

*It’s actually Tellurium.                 

Working Titles

AL3 WTF brings you a sneaky list of some of the films to be previewed at this weekend’s St Albans Film Fest.
The Redbourn Supremacy – Villagers flaunt their postcodes at nearby Hemel residents.

Das Boot – Subtitled German movie about men crammed into a small pub near the Clock Tower.

From Here to……..Eternity – An everyday drama of Thameslink commuter woes.

Vertigo – The Clock Tower opens for spring.

North by Northwest – New Greens

West Side Story – Car Broken into in Oysterfields.

The Holywell Hill Has Eyes – Opticians at no. 4

V for Viennetta – unruly crowds gather around the ice cream van in Verulamium Park.

The Sound of Music – The Horn at 1am on a Sat Night.

The Graduate – Herts Uni Caped Crusaders Invade Town Centre for Annual Ceremony.

Some Like It Hot – Vindaloo at Mumtaj

Apocalypse Now – closing time at Wetherspoon’s.

There Will Be Blood – closing time at Wetherspoon’s.

It Happened One Night – at the Adelaide, usually.

Guys and Dolls –  Tales of unsuccessful nights at Batchwood and air pumps (Cert 18)

Guest Director Season

(A series of films Directed by, Produced by, Written by & Starring Barry C. Ashin)

Tango and Cashin – Buddy movie starring a fizzy beverage drinking frustrated letter writer.

12 Angry Men – (sci-fi) Frustrated letter writer clones himself so he can write more letters to local newspapers.

Barry on Screaming – Comedy horror movie about a frustrated letter writer who has a fear of women breastfeeding in St Albans coffee shops.

How To Train Your Dragon – A frustrated letter writer gives advice to husbands of SAMs.



and finally, coming to a screen near you soon,  a musical about a frustrated letter writer and his failed foray into films. Working title………………………………….,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Les Miserables(sod) .

Areas of St Albans: The Truth Revealed

After years of research, the AL3 WTF Historical Society has uncovered the true origins of our local place names. 
The name Bernards Heath derives from the period when comedian Bernard Cribbins was at the height of his fame and both a major St Albans celebrity and significant local employer at his condom factory on the Pioneer Skate Park site off the Harpenden Road. Cribbins’ prophylactics were known as a Bernard Sheath. This name came to represent the local area. Over time, the name was adapted to Bernards Heath to avoid embarrassment and a negative impact on house prices.

Smallford derives its name not from the fact that the Ford Ka was designed here, but because this is where the creator of baby milk brand SMA, Lloyd Lilywhite, discovered in 1978 that his breast-milk substitute enabled babies to see in 4D. Over time, the company name changed to Lloyd Lilywhite’s SMA 4D which, in turn, became SMALL 4D and then SMALLFORD. Today a local by-law ensures that all newborns in Smallford receive 12 months’ free supply of SMA. Many top London marketing agencies recruit their graphic designers from Smallford, often sponsoring them through nursery so as to secure the pick of this visionary bunch at an early age.

The Camp: Previous residents include: Dale Winton, Graham Norton, Louie Spence, Alan Carr, Julian Clary and Larry Grayson.

Marshalswick. When the Californian Gold Rush was at its height, American law-enforcers sent their fast-track recruits to St Albans for its world-renowned centre of police training. The recruits’ lodging block stood where the garages behind The Quadrant are now located. It was a risky job being a US Marshal in the Wild West and mortality rates were high. Whenever word reached the training centre that one of its graduate marshals had perished upholding the law in frontierland, a candle would be lit at the south facing bullet-proof windows of the training block. Tradition was that the candle would burn for five hours, be extinguished and then left in the window as a permanent memorial. Over the years, the strong summer sun magnified through the re-enforced windows would decay the wax, leaving the wicks draping limply over the window-ledge; hence the area became known as Marshalswick. The training centre is long gone, but today sales of Jo Malone candles are higher in the AL4 postcode than anywhere else in Hertfordshire.

London Colney gained its capital prefix so that 17th century overseas visitors wouldn’t confuse the area with Barcelona Colney, Copacabana Colney, Coney Island or Beirut.

Park Street. This is where, in 1816, Nathan Colin Prius invented the car park. Rather cumbersomely, his first venture was called Nathan Colin Prius’ Car Park Off-Street. Business was somewhat quiet for the first 70 years until the subsequent invention of the automobile. Realising that he was onto something, Prius set up Britain’s first franchise business and the initials NCP became synonymous nationwide with extortionate charges and terrible service. As the result of an accident around the time of the Boer War when an executive from Aquascutum crashed his motorcycle into the original entrance sign, the words ‘Car’ and ‘Off’ perished and, by default, the area became known as Park Street.

As viewers of Mastermind will know, Llimnottoc is the name of the chemical solution painted on the back of glass to make a mirror.  After being discovered by a German chemist working at a St Albans glass-cutting business to the south-east of the city, and written about in the book Hier Kommt Der Mirror Mann, Harper Collins (Berlin) 1867, Llimnottoc brought fame and prosperity to the city. A lazy apprentice one day idly wrote the word Llimnottoc in sand in the factory yard as his colleague stood leaning against an upright mirror placed after the letter ‘c’. And that’s how Cottonmill got its name.

The truth around the origin of New Greens is somewhat complex.  The name reflects that this part of the city is a hub of musical and entertainment talent. Hughie Green (compere of 1970s talent show Opportunity Knocks) was from the area, as was Derek Hobson host of New Faces. In tribute to these two iconic talent shows, the area became knows as New Greens (‘Hughie Faces’ being the second choice). It remains St Albans’ creative quarter, and buskers, jugglers, stilt-walkers and fire-eaters can be seen performing on street corners most evenings. In recognition of New Greens as the birthplace of the modern-day talent show, the next series of X-Factor is to be filmed exclusively in New Greens Hall on High Oaks.

As every Year 9 child knows, the name Jersey Farm originates from top secret work undertaken during World War II at the Home Office Centre for Applied Science and Technology on Woodcock Hill. Attempts to grow military knitwear made of bomb-proof Kevlar failed, but later endeavours to make sweaters out of goal stanchions and crossbars did give rise to the 1940s term ‘goalposts for jumpers’.

The name Fleetville originates from the 1740s when the area’s docks were famous the world over for building the ships of the Royal Navy. Before setting off for the West Indies, new vessels would load up with supplies from the ship’s chandlers located on the current Morrisons site. (Readers might recall that a Safeway supermarket previously stood here for over 250 years. The name ‘safeway’ itself originating from the farewell that the shop girl on the mead counter would shout to sailors to wish them safe passage as their ships disappeared into the sunset.) Fleetville’s docks have long dried up, but the fact that Morrisons has the best fresh fish counter in the city is testament to the area’s nautical roots.

Before Wheathampstead Cathedral was sacked by invaders from Welwyn in 1684, Sandridge was a wafer-thin settlement comprising mainly of delicatessens, butchers and producers of trout pâté. The village was known as ‘sandwich’ as it was the filling in the middle between the two great bread-baking cathedral cities of St Albans and Wheathampstead. Over the centuries, the village’s name evolved to Sandridge. This explanation should settle once and for all the debate as to whether the correct pronunciation is Sand-ridge or Sarrndridge; it is, of course, Sand-ridge, as in sandwich.

When oil was discovered on the outskirts of St Albans in 1923, workers used giant chisel-drills to cut through the lush turf and through the limestone to create a well; from this innovative approach the name Chiswell Green was born. Although drilling ceased in 1965, its legacy hangs heavy over Chiswell Green:

– until 2009 the council would only grant planning permission for bungalows as the subsoil was deemed highly unstable after 40 years’ deep drilling.

– In Greenwood Park, from 2 – 4am nightly the giant torch structure near the top car park burns excess oil and gas to prevent volatile underground build-ups. Each midsummer’s night, locals gather beneath the flame and toast giant marshmallows on 6m-long skewers.

– As a gas-leaking fault line runs under the park, visiting cricketers are warned before games not to have a crafty fag in the outfield as players fielding at deep mid-wicket have been know to spontaneously combust when attempting a sneaky JPS between overs.

Much to the embarrassment of the current rigidly upstanding people of Batchwood, their part of our city gained its name from pioneering 19th century work undertaken at Batchwood Hall to find alternative ways to alleviate erectile dysfunction.  The innovative approach revolved around practical therapy for men who were treated together in groups (or ‘batches’), and hence the term ‘batchwood’ was coined.

Finally – Beech Bottom Dyke: you can work this one out for yourselves…

Old El Paso Fiasco

So here we are, Mother’s Day gone, Easter over, first week of half-term all done, the clocks have magically sprung forwards (except the ones for the oven, microwave, two cars, three wrist watches, bedroom hi-fi, kitchen wall clock, bathroom wall clock and the 1984 ghetto Boomblaster) AND the sun has come out!  But the threat of a disturbingly dark menace is about to descend upon some of us…………
I speak, of course, of the most unwelcome double act since Jedward (if only they had been christened Peter and Rick?). Yes, DIY and gardening.

Yes, duty calls for Snorbenite males. Our better halves, under the guise of interior design/landscape gardener experts, pay no heed to the fact that the football and rugby season ending crescendo is upon us. Instead, without fail, they begin the annual ritual that is the writing of (imagine a Vincent Price voice-over) ‘The Little List of Things’.

The only certainties about ‘The List’ are that it shall contain things that are little, things that are not so little and things that are big. For verily, it is written that, though ‘The List’ may hath items crossed off it when they are completed, new items will be added by the Forewoman once she hath watched the latest episode of Kirstie’s Fill Your House (with stuff you didn’t know you wanted) For Free. Well, that’s “Free” unless you can get it ready made or have to cover it with Farrow & Ball liquid gold.

My interior designer was preoccupied over the recent Bank Holiday so I, temporarily, escaped ‘The List’ but it stills hangs like the sword of Damocles waiting to drop whenever it is most inconvenient.

Not for me bedding plants and emulsion colour charts, oh no, no, no dear readers. My Bank Holiday sports fest was to be interrupted by the urgent need for ……………packets of fajita mix!

Yes, fajita mix and yes it was ‘urgent’. There was an emergency and I was required to make a mercy dash to get the ‘Old Alamo’ fajita kit and be quick (or should I say ‘muy rápido’) about it too.

‘What could possibly be “urgent” about Old Amarillo fajita mix?’ I hear you ask.

Well, dear reader, I am reliably informed that, due to the current composition of your standard fajita mix packet, there is a condition called “EXTRAS” – EXcessive Tortillas Remaining After Supper. This can lead to Cupboard Room At Premium (see pic) syndrome and despite my thoughtful suggestion that they may come in handy should we be caught short for toilet paper the pile never seems to decrease.

Where were we?

Ah yes, mercy dash.

‘Ok my dearest, sounds simple enough’ (silly me).

‘It’s in the yellow and red box, but not the Original recipe one. You have to get the one with “extra mild super tasty” written in blue.’

‘Ah, so that’ll be the yellow and red with a bit of blue on it box then?’

‘Just ask in the shop if you’re not sure!’

So, with those words of encouragement ringing in my ears, I left for the joy of Painsbury’s. Now I must confess that I mostly shop at Waitrose, mainly because, when I first moved to Snorbans, I was led to believe that it was compulsory if one was to be accepted in social circles. PS – Before any accusations of snobbery are made, I have been known to pop into the odd Chavsda too.

However, I had ulterior motives for going to Painsberries. No, not to look at the latest TU spring collection. Firstly, it gave me the excuse to nip into Homebase to look at all the gardening and power tools that I had no intention of buying or, even if I did buy them, using. It’s a man thing.

Secondly, I wanted to look at and photograph the location for AL3’s pet project.” If you build it they will come.” All will be revealed in a later blog but, suffice to say for now, ‘support us or the puppy gets it’. 

PS -To the lady passer-by who saw me taking pictures and gave me a look as if I’d farted at her baby’s christening (wind-breaking at other religious gatherings is also available) I was just taking a photo!!

Anyway, important stuff done, I strolled over to the superstore and (to my delight) the only thing longer than the till queues (presumably Waitrose was closed?) was the distance to the aforementioned paquete de tortillas. Superstore? SuperLONGstore more likely.

Suffice to say, an hour later I was homeward bound armed with 3 packets of Old Eldorado fajita mix all resplendent in yellow red and blue, well at least two of them were. Why don’t people put things back in the right places?!

Two would be enough though, we won’t be having fajitas more than twice in the same week surely?

I returned, hunter-gatherer duties complete and satisfied in knowing that there would be no panic in our home should we run out of toilet paper.

Obviously the error in the shop (1 in 3 failure rate) was mentioned by the interior design department who deemed it “typical”.

‘No, no I ask for nothing in return dear, after all, my reward is your pleasure my dearest.’

I was swiftly reminded that I was fortunate that the best things come in small packages.

OBVIOUSLY she was talking about fajita kits!!

Hasta luego muchachos.

Summertime, and the livin’ is easy

Fish are jumpin’ and the grass verges are high.
​
Here’s our guide to some of the exciting things that will be happening in St Albans over the next couple of months plus a few that we’d like to see in the not too distant future.
The City & District council have spent most of the entertainment budget on fly-posting the whole area with their most informative publication ‘Community News – Summer in the City’ leaflet.

Personally, I’m intrigued at the mention of the new full colour 3D illustrated St Albans City Centre map and guide, only 2 quid from the Tourist Information Centre (no we don’t get commission).

Mind you, I’ll be first in the queue for a refund if a scale model of the clock tower doesn’t pop up and poke me in the eye when I unfold the map but they do say ‘3D’ so surely I won’t be disappointed?

To be fair though, as long as it’s got the beach volleyball court location clearly marked, (presumably near the ‘bottom’ end of the park) it’ll be the best £2 I spend all summer.

There’ll be the usual giant puppets at the Alban Weekend and the equally scary Morris men will be banging their short sticks against each other as they dance.  

Which reminds us, the International Organ festival will soon be upon us too. Although seeing it advertised in the leaflet with a picture of altar boys made us wonder if someone’s got the wrong end of the stick? 

The Verulamium museum is holding numerous events this summer among them are a few that we would have been proud to have thought of ourselves.

Just for the kids, there’s the ‘Make your own Roman Fridge Magnet’ sessions.

WTF?!

Now we’ll give the Romans credit for central heating and concrete but we at AL3 know for a ‘fact’ that refrigerators were invented in 1066 by Korean ice cream van driver Mr Sam Sung.

There’s also a talk entitled “The Wicked Lady”.
Who was she? What naughty things did she do? What happened to her?”

Well (SPOILER ALERT), we can reveal that she is a 54 year old woman from Sandridge who shoplifted all over the county (a strange penchant for HDMI cables and Lego sets), is banned from numerous shops in the area and has been given a 2 week suspended sentence.

Herts Ad court report, once again, we thank you.

Coincidentally, there are ‘mock’ trials being held at the Crown Court as part of the Magna Carta 800th anniversary.

Perhaps the town planners who are responsible for the Premier Inn and Blue and Red bank in St Peters Street could be put in the dock for crimes against the City’s architecture?

Now, I expect you all put hands in pockets to help bring to life St. Albans very own boutique cinema and (KERCHING!) there it is. The Odyssey.

No longer will Snorbenites need to traipse into Londinium to see such Art House classics like MOOMINS ON THE RIVIERA (book now for this weekend’s matinee and ‘no’ we don’t get commission).

Anyway, the council will soon be asking the good people of the city for a couple of million towards the £8m needed to turn the old town hall building into a replica of the Obama’s current residence. Apparently it will be a museum and at that price we can only imagine what events they will hold there for the kids when it’s open. Make your own Roman thermo-nuclear reactor?

Finally, here are three things that may, or may not, be in the minds of the council.

Yes, they may sound ridiculous but just promise to remember where you heard it first and we promise not to say “we told you so”.

They aren’t going to pedestrianise the High Street but plans are afoot for a trolley bus system from the Abbey Station up the hill. It’s still being decided on where the trolley bus will terminate but the Peahen is our bet.

This will coincide with the new twin ice rinks planned for the former site of the gasometers down by the retail park.  Our source at the council told us “The last thing anyone wants to do after two hours of acting like Torville or Dean is to schlep back up Holywell Hill into town so we’ll try and have the trolley bus system in place in time for the opening”.

In the unlikely event that the tram and skating options don’t work out, there’s also a compromise contingency plan involving turning Holywell Hill into a giant waterslide but this is so ridiculous we won’t go into any detail here.

Enjoy the sun (if the grass verges aren’t blocking it out)  and remember – 

If you build it, they will come. 

Top Ten ISAs

 (Institutions of St Albans: Ten local things to be proud of)
1. Window shopping on Holywell Hill.

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.

Central Perks

We left our daughter with a stranger the other day while we went swimming. It was the first time we’d done this. (Left her with a ‘stranger’ that is, not gone swimming – although, thinking about it, it is the first time we’ve been swimming together – holidays aside. We don’t go swimming as a couple. The fact my wife can’t actually swim being a key limiting factor.)
We’ve left our daughter with relatives before and she does a couple of days at nursery, but this was the first time we’d left her with some random person. Ok, so some of our relatives could be considered ‘random people’ (my brother delighted in ensuring one of the first body parts our daughter could point to was her sternum, after she was entrusted to his care for an extended period. Not for her pointing merely to her ‘nose’ or ‘eyes’. Of course, I kept this key piece of anatomical knowledge alive; I didn’t want him to think that his hard work had gone to waste.) We did two visits and four ‘settling in’ sessions at nursery before we left our daughter with registered childcare professionals at an Ofsted inspected premises. When we wanted to go swimming, we just booked a babysitter by dialling Guest Services on ext.3403.

Ok, so we were at Center Parcs (always feel like that should be ‘Centre’ Parcs – I’ve an irrational dislike of that mixing of French and American-English spellings). But we were leaving our child with a stranger for the first time…to go to the water park. We weren’t going to a family funeral or some other absolutely essential event like a 15% off day in Feather & Black (is there ever not a sale on in that shop?). We weren’t actually even going swimming; we were going to play on the water slides with other adults who were also leaving their toddlers for the first time with a ‘vetted babysitter’, as described in the Guest Manual in our lodge.

I was against it. I volunteered not to go. Not because I don’t like water slides, outdoor rapids and sitting on large rubber rings whilst zooming down oversized plastic tubes – in fact, I probably like these more than most people – just because I was against it. Just because. Plus, I knew I’d then have the cast-iron get-out clauses of ‘I told you so’ and ‘It wasn’t my idea’.

We had a nervous 24 hours between booking the ’sitter and speed-changing in a humid cubicle.

‘What if it’s a man?’ I said. ‘It won’t be,’ my wife replied, based on nothing whatsoever. ‘What if it’s a teenager?’ I said. ‘It won’t be,’ my wife replied, based on nothing whatsoever. ‘What if it’s a …’ I was interrupted by a complimentary guest magazine hurtling towards me.

To leave the single most precious thing in your life (complete Figurini Panini football sticker albums and chronological set of St Albans Beer Festival commemorative glasses excluded) with someone you’ve never even met before is unnerving.

We spent the whole preceding day not talking about it, save for my brilliant suggestion:

‘What would you prefer – me complaining all evening that I don’t trust her or me leaving before she arrives and you shouldering the responsibility as to whether she’s a fit and proper person to look after Bridget?’ (Bridget isn’t our daughter’s real name, but people always hide the identities of their children so I’m just following suit. Her name nearly was Bridget, though (or would it have been Bridgette, or even Brigid – we never got that far, thanks to the timely intervention of morphine – it’s a long story).

We came to a compromise: The ’sitter (I dislike that term, having now typed it twice. I want her to stand, walk around, sing, play games – be a mix of Mary Poppins and Nanny McPhee, perhaps with a sprinkling of Taylor Swift for my benefit, not slump in front of the TV watching TOWIE while my daughter cries) was due at 7.30pm so we agreed that I’d leave at 7.25 so as to absolve myself of all parental responsibility. A brilliant plan, I thought, and one guaranteed to ensure I had a conscience-clear evening of water slides and inflatable rings, followed by two swift pints in what passes for a ‘pub’ at Centrerere Parcs (CAMRA members and anyone with a sense of taste and a desire for quiet drink turn away and save your eyes – think Jarman Park meets Luton Airport bar).

Nothing could go wrong. Nothing.When the spotty teenager or middle-aged male babysitter arrived, I’d not be there. My wife would be armed with a toddler not called Bridget and a get-out-of-jail emergency plan. This pre-agreed escape route was that if the ‘vetted’ babysitter arrived looking like he/she had been vetted in the animal medicine sense of the word, my wife would promptly pay in cash and say ‘thanks, but no thanks’. Either away, my appointment with Tornado, Twister and Torpedo was assured.

The knock on the door came at 7.22. Damn. My selfish, unfair plan de-railed in an instant. Debbie (real name – can’t imagine this blog hitting national headlines) was lovely. In fact, Lovely with a capital L: a warm, kindly, person with grown-up children.  She was a cross between Mary Poppins and Nanny McPhee (well, the Taylor Swift bit was probably too much to ask in the first place). She worked in one of the shops on the site. If only they’d told us this in advance then we could have ‘vetted’ her ourselves by creeping around said shop and trying to eavesdrop on her conversations to check if she was nice to small children.

Debbie was brilliant. Our friends had Jean, who was equally great, apparently. With names like Debbie and Jean, our children were in safe hands.

Now, I don’t know much about babysitters as we fortunately have relatives locally, but one of the things that concerned me most was the cost only being £6.50/hour. When you’ve precious little by way of advance information to go on, price can be an indicator of quality. Now, I use the term ‘only’ with real caution. But, remember, we were at Center Parckcks; a place where, despite being in a forest (of sorts), once inside the barrier the cost of living exceeds that of uptown Manhattan, with everything about 30% more than in the real world. So our £6.50 was really only about £4.90. Plus, we booked Debbie indirectly so I’m sure CP took a cut somewhere along the line. This means, very roughly, we’d probably paid the real world equivalent of £3.90 an hour for a top-notch babysitter. In advance this made me nervous. With hindsight, I now think it’s probably about the only flippin’ bargain available anywhere at a Parc Central. You live and learn.

p.s. The water-slides were great.

I’m an alien, I’m a legal alien…

I’m a North Londoner in Saint A.

Yes, like my fellow contributor (see To be or not St A), I am not a native.
I’ve lived here for just over 7 years and what’s not to like? 

The journey from North London to South Hertfordshire is not too far as the crow flies but believe you me, St. Albans is, in nearly every aspect, a world away from Edmonton.
Yes, Edmonton, London N9, not all bad, but not much good these days either.
Anyway, in case you never get the opportunity to visit (and I can’t imagine why you would bar a court summons) here is what you’re not missing.

Trees
St Albans has them. And, as if you don’t already have enough, you are building a forest down the road just so you can have some more.
‘Building a forest’?
Edmonton had a huge space just out of town suitable for a forestation project. There, by the river in the valley, nestling between the reservoirs, they did plant. Edmonton Solid Waste Incineration Plant.
St. Albans has tree-lined avenues and parks brimming with dozens of mature trees.
Even Edmonton’s municipal golf course didn’t bother with them. After all, the electricity pylons that cross the fairways and the discarded supermarket trolleys in bunkers provide all the “natural” hazards an aspiring golfer could wish for.

Enough nature for now.

Community
St Albans actually has competitions to name things. My better half (St. Albans ‘born and bred I tell ya’) informs me that ‘The Maltings’ shopping centre was named by an old school chum of hers. I imagine there wasn’t a competition to name Edmonton Green’s shopping centre which is called Edmonton Green Shopping Centre.

Pubs
There’s a plethora of pubs and restaurants in St Albans and a coffee shop explosion (which this tea lover will ignore). In Edmonton there were two pubs you went to. Your ‘local’ and your football match pub. However, etiquette dictated that you didn’t go to the latter on non-football days as it then reverted back to being someone else’s local and your welcome would consist of stares, grunts, disapproving looks and foul-mouthed mutterings. The barmaids are pretty mean in N9. Conversely, the pubs in St. Albans are varied as are the ales and clientele and you can pretty much feel welcome in any of them. And amusingly, you have two within a stone’s throw of a place called ‘Temperance Street’, what happened there then? That’s like having two ‘saunas’ near Angel Road! 

Now, I’ve dined in a few of the restaurants in St Albans. Some really good ones and a couple of not so good ones but everything is catered for from breakfast through to dinner (or do you call it supper?). Recommendations on request. Edmonton has restaurants, mostly of the takeaway variety. No recommendations but, to my knowledge, no restaurant of any kind in St Albans has been closed due to (nature alert) the discovery of cats in the freezer. But please let me know if I’m wrong.

Schools
Now there are a couple of good, nay, very good schools, in my home town but St Albans is dripping with them and I am not aware of any of the Junior schools having their surrounding fences topped off with barbed wire as I was dismayed to see at my old school the last time I passed by. I did wonder if it was there to keep intruders at bay or to stop the teachers from escaping?
Another, minor observation (although AL3 WTF would like to point out that ‘minor observation’ is frowned upon nowadays. We like trees, just not Project Yewtrees!) is this. There are a high proportion of St Albans schoolboys all seemingly coiffured by a boy band’s tonsorial artiste. Nothing wrong with that though, just sayin’.
As for famous pupils, I’ll trump your Stephen Hawking with Sir Bruce Forsyth. Yeah, Theory of Everything, but can he remember all the items on the conveyor belt?

City Centre
The centre of the city is nice. St. Peter’s Street. Trees, more trees! Mind you, beware ye the brightly coloured bank and hotel lights for they pave the way for massage parlours and a 98p shop.
One big plus of the City centre is that, should I ever wish to recreate some of the atmosphere of my old stomping ground, I just have to stroll along St. Peters Street early on a Sunday morning. Avoiding the herd of MAMILs* as they prepare for their weekly cycle ride, walk past the 99p and quid shops and there it is. The unmistakable scent of Eau du Wee by Chav Pour Homme, still lingering from the previous night’s Waterend Barn hordes who have marked their territory (presumably so they can find their way back to the taxi rank after Veeda – or is it Adelaides?).
*MAMIL – Middle Aged Man In Lycra

There’s the clock tower and its views. The only towers in Edmonton are of the block kind and the views are industrial parks and concrete. St Albans Industrial parks are away from the city centre. I’m hoping the concrete crop circles left behind by the removal of the gasometers near Homebase will be turned into ice rinks for Christmas. A quick skate, walk up Holywell Hill (though for some reason pronounced Hollywell – why?!) to see the lights, night cap at the top end of town and home before anyone has sprayed their trail. 

Traffic
Wait, are the tables turned? Is St Alban the patron saint of potholes, parking restrictions and penalty charge notices? St Albans doesn’t do cars really does it? A couple of weeks ago my morning commute was bliss. I quickly realised that this was because I was travelling unhindered by the usual stream of Jeep Rover Q7s and their drivers apparent lack of girth awareness. Seriously school runners, you can get a bus through there. Yes, you Mrs Oversized SUV, in fact, a bus did get through just before you but your lack of width perception prevented movement. Half term was too short.
Edmonton traffic is, of course, constantly moving. Admittedly, fear is the key. Keep moving or get car-jacked. Only joking (or am I?) but, if the traffic does stop, you can be pretty sure there’s a road rage and/or police incident ahead.

Central locking on. Avoid eye contact.

To be or not St A

 

Hands up who’s from St Albans? No, I mean actually from St Albans rather than moved here because of trains, schools or just to be near a Dunkin’ Donuts.  Exactly; not many, not many.

Anyway, what makes you from somewhere in the first place?  Since the local maternity unit closed in the mid 80’s, no-one – home-births and roadside emergency deliveries aside – has actually been born here.  Our new bundles of joy* mainly first appear in Luton, Stevenage or Watford (the ultimate ‘lesser-of-evils’ choice, perhaps?) or, as is often the case, much further afield and subsequently move to St Albans once the desire to ‘settle down’ themselves gets too great.  It hurts most Snorbenites that their off-spring will be forever burdened by their introduction to the world being a WD, LU or SG postcode.  But not as much as it hurts people from Harpenden to have their children both born in Luton and be saddled with a Luton dialling code, so look on the bright side.  My daughter was a WD birth.  This pleased me.  Greatly.  It’s every parent’s calling to want their off-spring to have a better start in life than they did.  Not many people can say that about their child having ‘Watford’ in the appropriate section on their birth certificate.  I can.  As my own form states ‘Romford, Essex’.  Such is the stigma associated with this that I even lie to my telephone bank and the answer to the relevant security question states my place of birth as somewhere less embarrassing; somewhere with more up-market and exotic connotations.  I refer, of course, to Hemel.  Petty, but true that I’ve lied. I mean, Romford!  Have you been to Romford?  Of course you haven’t.  If you had, you’d not been reading this; you’d be out racing round what passes for our low-rent ring-road or doing (Dunkin’?) doughnuts in some deserted car park somewhere.  Plus, chances are, you wouldn’t even be able to read in the first place.

St Albans draws people in like iron filings to a magnet.  It has a lure.  Something.  Though many people are not quite sure what.  And, unlike those red, horseshoe-shaped magnets from the cartoons of yesteryear, there’s no comedy ‘off’ button: once you’re in, you’re in.  I know loads of people who’ve moved to St Albans; I know of hardly anyone who has moved away.

Anyway, what makes us who we are?  We St All-banians are growing in number.  In years to come, there will certainly be more old All-banians, but will there be as many surviving Old Albanians? I know a real immigrant Albanian who lives in St Albans.  He is (unfortunately, for the purpose of this piece) not an OA. However, I know he spends most evenings pondering whether when he’s old he’ll be an old Albanian, or an old All-banian.  Or repatriated by UKIP.

I like St Albans.  In fact, I like it a lot.  I voted with my feet (which is an electoral concept that makes the single transferable vote look positively dull).  I moved here for six months in the late 90’s.  And stayed. This is the longest I’ve ever lived anywhere.  Does this mean I’m now technically from St Albans?  Have I been given a free transfer to St Albans by Essex?

My other qualifications for naturalisation are fairly limited: I’ve been up the Clock Tower; I’ve been to every pub in St Albans (yes, every – I like to be thorough when it comes to watering-holes); I’ve done the half marathon; I’ve been on a rail-replacement bus service. I’ve flirted with starvation whilst queuing at the Waffle House.  What else does it take to qualify?

For the purposes of research, out of the blue I asked my wife where she was from.  After the initial blank look, she stated ‘halfway between Dublin and Belfast’.  Clearly, where she is from is defined by two places she’s not from?  But she was born in London.  So where’s the sense in that?  She sees ‘from’ in the context of ‘where I grew up’.  I, too, am going to adopt this principle.  One day, when I eventually grow up, I’ll then know where I am truly from.

* terms & conditions apply
​

Who Do GÜ Think You Are?

After extensive polling among residents of St Albans, AL3 WTF can exclusively reveal the most accurate way to measure exactly how middle-class one is.

Our research identifies that the glass ramekin is the modern-day yard-stick by which the ‘class’ of local residents can be measured.

You know how it goes: You eat your GÜ desserts; you wash the little glass ramekins they come in; you think ‘ooh, they’re nice – they’ll be handy for something’; you stack them at the back of a cupboard – the only dilemma being whether to put them with the glassware or the crockery (they’re actually made of glass, but you eat out of them so they’re not really glasses as such…). And there they sit in the cupboard. Untouched. Untouched, that is, until the next time you buy a little box of GÜ desserts (probably on special offer – c’mon, admit it). You eat your GÜ dessert; you wash the little glass ramekins; you think ‘ooh, they’re nice – they’ll be handy for something’; you put them in the cupboard…on top of the previous ones. This continues over a period of time until you’ve constructed a row of small glass versions of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

And one day, in a moment of complete madness, you think ‘I should get rid of some of these’. So you take one off the top of a tower and then you’re faced with the next dilemma: how to dispose of it. It’s not technically a bottle or a jar so you can’t put it in with your recycling for fear of attracting the council’s yellow sticker of shame on your recycling box – ‘YOU ARE A NUMPTY. DO NOT PUT UNAUTHORISED ITEMS IN THE RECYCLING’ and you can’t just throw it away as the rubbish goes straight to landfill and you really care about landfill and the legacy you leave to future generations. So you pursue the only sensible option open to you: you put the ramekin back on top of the little glass tower from whence it came.

And this is how it goes. Forever. You can’t break the cycle: you buy GÜ dessert; you eat GÜ dessert; you put glass ramekin in kitchen cupboard. There’s no way out. One day your whole kitchen will be full of ramekins – piled ceiling high. Across St Albans the same problem is encountered by many ramekindred spirits and whole sheds and garages will soon be stocked full of towers of glass ramekins. People will get ever-more imaginative as to what to do with the out-of-control supply of ramekins: they’ll be made into serviette holders – the napkin ramekin; people will sculpt them into Hobbit figurines – the Tolkien ramekin; KFC in Marshalswick will start to serve food in them – the finger lickin’ ramekin; they’ll be used for snacks after sunset during the Muslim holy month – the Ramadan ramekin; Amazon will even launch one you can read e-books on – the Ramekindle.

Ultimately, across our fair city, loft conversions and cellar playrooms will become rammed full of ramekins.  Necessity being the mother of invention, some bright spark will find the solution: every evening after nightfall you’ll hear the gentle chink of glass as people sheepishly put two empty ramekins out on their doorstep ready for collection early the next morning. All the old electric milk floats will be brought out of retirement to hum about in the half-light of dawn collecting glass ramekins while we all sleep safely in our beds resting before another busy day waiting for the Waitrose home delivery man to drop off fresh supplies of GÜ.

(Actually, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but if you look closely at your mywaitrose loyalty card, you’ll see there’s even a 24hr ramekin hotline should you have need for any late-night glass receptacle-related advice – Have you or anyone in your family been affected by issues surrounding ramekin storage?)

Anyway, the First World problem outlined above was all a long-winded way of explaining that how many ramekins you own defines how middle-class you are:

0: You are upper class. Your chef decants home-made chocolate dessert into bone china receptacles that have been in your family for generations; your butler then carries these on an engraved silver tray to the west wing to the least formal of your three dining rooms. You don’t even own a mywaitrose card.

1-5: You are middle class. You moved to St Albans from a town north of Coventry. If your great-grandparents were alive today they would be shocked and proud in equal measure that you not only now say ‘dessert’ rather than ‘pudding’, but that you also buy these sweet courses ready-made rather than cook your own using the mixing bowl that lovely cousin Julie bought you as a wedding present.

5-10: You are very middle class. You are part of the 1.3% of people in AL1-3 who have actually lived in St Albans their whole life.

10-30: You are extremely middle class. One day you will move to Harpenden.

30+: You are upper class. You probably own a ramekin-making factory.

Our survey findings also revealed a few supplementary ways to accurately confirm middle-classness:

  • If your first name ends in a consonant, but your first child’s name ends in a vowel then you are definitely middle class.
  • If you have ever been to a Center Parc, you are, without doubt, middle class.
  • If your heart missed a bit when you discovered that a Farrow & Ball shop had opened right by Caffè Nero in town then you are probably middle class (sooo convenient – coffee and colour-matching charts so close together). And if more than 11.6% of the wall-space in your home (excluding stables and staff-quarters) has been decorated with F&B paint then you absolutely are middle class.

And there’s nothing wrong with being part of the muddled class. Well, not too much.

About the author:

The author has no connection whatsoever with GÜ and has not even been covered in goo since that unfortunate incident all those years ago with the lamp-post and the 21st Birthday cake. However, the author does own eight glass ramekins (empty), has two rooms decorated with a colour called ‘Pointing’, has an older sibling living in Harpenden, a vowel/consonant combo…and a small scar on the left elbow from an over-enthusiastic descent on an indoor water-slide somewhere near Ampthill.