Public Art Across The Bridge

I took a lunchtime walk across Hills Road Bridge. This was promted by having passed a bizarre sculpture a few days earlier. And then a social media post showing another nearby that I would have walked past but not noticed in my near-somnambulant state en route to work. The bridge along one side  is host to a number of pieces of public art. All in their own way strange and collectively making up a sort of mini-sculpture trail of the bizarre.

I started across the road from 'The Marque', at the base of the bridge, opposite Cherry Hinton Road. This is apparently the tallest residential building in Cambridge. Previously, the site was home to a car showroom which I think was single storey. At that time there were very few tall buildings in Cambridge at all. I seem to remember it being said that they were not allowed, in case they interfered with the scenic skyline produced by the University Colleges. It was impossible to get planning permission for anything remotely high rise. That all seemes to have gone out of the window, if it was ever true. Over the last decade or so, particularly at this end of town and around the Station, a collection of multi-storey buildings have emerged. Opposite the Marque, immediately behind where I was standing, is the battleship-like Belvedere, which is another building hosting penthouse flats. It is almost as tall as the Marque. 

The Marque was shortlisted for the Carbuncle Cup award for 'Ugliest Building of the Year' in 2014. When it went up, it was a bit of a shock to the system. But now its somewhere I barely notice. In part because it is a sort of gated community. Its not, at least as far as I can work out, accessible to the public (or visitors). Gates are firmly closed. I even recall seeing a notice on the bike racks outside the co-op underneath saying that these were for the use of residents, despite being sited in the street outside. The Marque does feature some 'public art' on  the first floor balcony. Entitled 'Bits of the world Blow Towards Him and Come Apart On the Wind' it sounds like the title of a God Speed You Black Emperor! LP. I recall hearing that part of the planning consent included provision for public access to view this piece of art. But having passed the building on several occasions, I have so far failed to find any obvious entry point to access and view the installation. It can however, be seen online on the website of 'Future City', an organisation involved in commissioning public art for developers (at least that's how I interpreted their management speak-laden explanation of what they do).

I  passed the Belvedere, under the shadow of its helm-like grey metallic tower, before heading up the bridge. When I reached the top, the three office buildings on the other side came into view. The first and most recent of these is Academy House, currently one of several buildings in Cambridge occupied by AstraZeneca. Leading up to the entrance to Academy House a sort of astro-turfed 'garden' had been created with benches apparently for the employees to sit and contemplate. The sparse plantlife was dwarfed by the statue that immediately came into view after crossing the bridge's pinnacle.

The statue features a nude man with a tall pointy hat, balancing an elephant in the air. The view below features the neighbouring office, Unex House, in the background. The Academy House 'garden' is to the fore. The golden hat the man is wearing is clearly symbolic. It brought to mind wizards, clowns, dunces and people from the band Gong. But the internet reveals that the artist says the hat represents knowledge through the ages. The sculpture is also supposed to symbolise 'the human struggle to achieve excellence, pushing boundaries to  make the impossible possible'. The artist, Bushra Fakhoury, goes on to say 'We need to prioritise, work positively and relentlessly towards achieving our goals and dreams'. This on the face of it, sounds like corporate management speak designed to motivate workers into believing their efforts have some higher purpose other than to fill shareholders pockets. An attempt to keep them on the treadmill, nose to the grindstone. But the sculpture is called Dunamis which is the name of an Ancient Greek philosphical concept meaning 'power', 'potential' or 'ability'. This is central to the Aristotelian idea of potentiality and actuality, which is not one necessarily concerned with the relentless push for 'progress' or economic growth. Nor with the perplexing concept of hard work for its own sake where a never ending series of 'goals' is seen as something individuals should constantly aspire to. The sculpture also seems to have a message around humans supporting the survival of endangered species, somehow entwined with these  concepts. AstraZennca have of course developed one of the Covid vacines successfully, helping to reduce the impact of Covid and reduce the number of deaths. This was managed impressively quickly, showing that where there is the will, expertise and (importantly) funding available, the 'impossible' can be achieved. The fact it was achieved shows it was never impossible in the first place, despite the misguided protestations of the anti-vax keyboard warriors who think a safe vacine does not and cannot exist and could not be developed with any speed. How many elephants or other endangered species were either harmed, saved or unaffected in the course of the  development of the vacine remains unclear.

I entered the 'garden' to get a closer view. It wasn't clear whether this space was meant to be available to the public to sit in or if it was only to be used by staff and people visiting Academy House. But there was nothing preventing entry and no 'private' or 'keep out' signs that I could see. Nobody was taking advantage of the space to stop for a rest or have their lunch, or to admire the sculpture. There was no sign of life from Academy House, nobody went in or out during my brief pause in the space.

The view of the statue from this angle was framed by the Marque, the Belvedere and the slightly more low rise Travelodge. This trio of buildings have all appeared following the apparent relaxation of the restriction on tall buildings in Cambridge. Twenty years ago this view would have probably been laughed off as 'impossible'. Now the impossible has been realised, whether this represents 'progess', is really in the eye of the beholder. Ignoring meaning intended by the artist, the statue brought to my mind the image of a bizarre circus. In the foreground of the non-descript 21st Century scene behind it, the statue felt like a mischievous intervention. The bizarre and unusual imposed on an environment dominated by the bland and the corporate, and mocking it. The hat man has his bare arse firmly pointed insultingly towards The Marque.

I left the garden and carried on down the bridge. At the far end of Unex House, on a patch of grass, 'The Don' looks out across the bridge like a giant being from another world. Unconvincingly disguised as a University academic, its white emulsion face melts downwards into a sort of neck scarf affair and has deep eyeless sockets. This piece of public art is possibly one of the strangest and mysterious in Cambridge. Its also one that was derided by Cambridge's public art officer as 'one of the poorest quality works' ever submitted to them. The artist , Pablo Atchugarry, called this accusation 'an abuse' of his work. He has also been reported as denying being responsible for producing it in the first place.

When I first noticed The Don, probably a couple of years ago, it was sited further back in the Unex House car park. It moved to its more prominent position more recently, probably during lockdown, but I can't recall exactly when. One day it was suddenly there, an imposing figure not far from the pedestrian footpath. This proximity allowed the plaque at its based to be easily read. It says 'HRH Prince Philip. Duke of Edinburgh Chancellor University of Cambridge 1977-2011'. Its not clear if this plaque was part of the original design of the sculpture, or a later addition. Or whether the figure itself is supposed to be Prince Philip, or at least an alien-like abstraction of him during his period as Chancellor. It was only after his death last year that I learned of The Prince Philip Movement., a cargo cult on the Island of Tanna. They worship Prince Philip as a deity and have in the past sent delegations to the UK. Maybe they wil send a future delegation to worship at the base of The Don.

Across to the edge of the third office building, City House, I encountered the third sculpture. This is 'Danse-Gwenodour', by the same artist as Dunamis, Bushra Fakhoury. It is intended to depict 'celebration of life' and inspired by a dance performed by villagers in Bretagne, France (or Brittany), a place famous for magalithic monuments and 'mysterious art vestiges' according to one website. This may explain the strange paganistic feel of the sculpture. The beak-masked faces and wild dancing of the naked figures has something of The Wicker Man about it. Like the Dumanis sculpture and the Don, this seemed a bizarre intervention, at odds with the typically 1990s office building behind it. From this angle though, even City House manages to emenate a sort of monolithic church tower like quality that I had not associated with the building before.

City House has sculptures inside too. I tried to peer surreptitiously through the window. There was a statue of somebody sitting down and another which looked like a horses head just inside. The glass was too opaque to make them out properly. As I tried to get a better view I stood in front of the door which automatically opened. There appeared to be nobody inside but presumably there was a receiptionist somewhere beyond the murk, behind the statue of a bull. This seemed to be placed in the position of a guardian to put off potential intruders. I recalled coming to this building once to sign up with a recruitment agent when I was under threat of being made redundant. My recollection was of a bull statue in the basement, resembling the Minotaur in its labyrinth. The building at the time seemed to be mostly financial sector businesses. That and the name City House, along with the symbol of the bull, had connotations of The City of London Financial Centre. Maybe the building was an outpost, maybe it was trying to project an imagined connection to drum up business. I've never met anyone that works there and in the end I wasn't made redundant so had no need to communicate with the recruitment agency or visit the building again, so never found out. It turns out there are two bulls, so maybe the one I remember is still in the basement. But I didn't hang around to find out. After I took the quick snap above I departed, sensing that my presence would be questioned should any reception staff suddenly appear.

The final sculpture on the Hills road trail is 'Chauvinist'. This is sited on the other side of City House, at the junction with Hills Road and Brooklands Avenue. This pre-dates the other three outdoor sculptures on the Bridge. I was commissioned in 1990, around the time City House was being built. The artist is Helaine Blumenfield but I can't find any explanation online as to the intended meaning of the sculpture. But given the City House's actual or imagined connections with the City Of London Finance industry, I suspect the title says it all. The Financial sector today is still reported as being one rife with sexism and I imagine in the early 1990s, during the era of 'new laddism', was even worse.

I left the vicinity of the bridge and its bizarre parade of office public art to go back to work. The sculptures felt like a series of disruptions of the otherwise non-descript corporate landscape created by the three office buildings. That they were permitted and sponsored by the same people as the offices themselves I suppose watered this feeling down to an extent but that didn't seem to matter much.That they managed to exist at all seemed to me a good thing in an area of town particularly susceptible to the development of ever homogenised and increasingly expensive offices, appartment buildings and hotels.

View from the Bench: Mill Road

The almost total removal of Covid restrictions, for the time being at least, had been heralded by ‘Freedom Day’. I cautiously felt that the grip of the pandemic was finally loosening. At least for the time being. The beginning of the end and the beginning of whatever the ‘new normal’ would look like. 

 

I had been wandering along Mill Road, the main street in the vicinity, on most days during the pandemic. For the majority of the period, Mill Road Bridge had been closed to through traffic as part of an Emergency Traffic Order to help social distancing on the street. The bridge closure and its associated ‘build outs’ initially seemed to bring about an atmosphere of almost static interregnum, layered on top of the already existing Covid-induced pause in everyday life. But as restrictions eased, the street became gradually more populated. At the same time, a noticeably different feel emerged, in comparison to that of the pre-covid era. Random encounters with friends and acquaintances and sightings of familiar faces were (still) much rarer than before. I recognised barely anyone among those on the street or in the shops. Nor among those sitting outside the cafes and restaurants that had installed additional tables on the pavements. Things were different to ‘the before time’. The phenomena that seems most symbolic the changes is the orange Voi e-scooter, a thing barely known of pre-pandemic but now ubiquitous. Its arrival, among a plethora of other electric powered bikes and mopeds, seemed to herald a significant shift in time and place, as if the street had fast forwarded a few years, rather than a few months.

I decided it was time to take stock. I had been walking the street most days, but really in a getting from A to B way, not properly noticing. Rather than just walk, I decided to include a static form of observance on one of Mill Road’s benches. There are a handful dotted along the road and I had a vague plan that having a ‘sit’ for a period on each of these. Maybe using them all over a period of time would allow me to properly immerse myself. A sort of immobile psychogeography. There were several options. There are benches around the Romsey R, one on top of Mill Road Bridge and some outside the Co-op. There are probably others I’ve never noticed. I elected though, to go to the bench on the corner of Coleridge Road.

The bench sits at a four way Junction with traffic lights with Hemingford Road opposite Coleridge Road, and Mill Road passing through the middle. It is somewhere most people probably walk by without paying too much attention. I couldn’t remember ever stopping and sitting here, or lingering in the vicinity. But when I arrived soon found myself in a place that seemed to exist in an almost separate enclave. The bench backs onto a wall, next to a couple of bins and green telecoms boxes. On the wall are two utilities markers. There are several manhole covers on the ground, including a series of concrete grey ones surrounded by tall flowering hollyhocks.

Upon sitting on the bench among these utilitarian objects and (possibly) random selection of plant life, I soon felt like I was in a sort of liminal spectator zone, where I could exist as unnoticed as the telecoms boxes. 

 

Across Coleridge Road was the yet-to-be developed old Romsey Labour Club building. It still exists in its own liminal space surrounded by an area of decaying concrete floor and wild edgelandic vegetation. The windows are now boarded and graffiti is starting to emerged on the crumbling brown walls. But other than that, it remains in a similar state to the last time I mentioned it, in a previous blog from the beginning of the bridge closure just over a year ago. I don’t know what is preventing the development into serviced apartments, which was approved over two years ago now. I suspect the task will be easier for the developer once the building has collapsed of its own volition, particularly the facade which is meant to be retained. But for now at least, I could savour the building, which despite its sorry state, is still one of Mill Road’s best features.

The Labour Club was once the epicentre of Red Romsey or Little Russia and no doubt built to last. But its demise is symbolic of those terms being irrelevant in contemporary Romsey, as the forces of change and gentrification march ever onwards. The building is an outcrop of an otherwise buried layer of Mill Road’s history. As I observed from the bench, a black and white spray-painted Joe Strummer looked on enigmatically from the corner of one of the boarded up windows, while the Coleridge Road sign was being slowly engulfed by vegetation. The only new feature I noticed, other than the street art, is a road sign. This shows the traffic restriction due to the bridge closure to the right. Meanwhile any would-be bridge crossing cars are diverted to the left, down the stretch of Mill Road that seemed least affected by the changes brought about by Covid and the bridge closure. I reflected that the Mill Road Winter Fair, which in pre-Covid times saw the road closed for the day in December, also usually ends at this junction, leaving the leftward stretch as the only part of the road open to traffic. I wondered if the fair would be extended on its pre-Covid return to include the small number of businesses along this usually forgotten part of the street, along with a chance to visit the impressive mosque which I’m not sure was open in time for the last Mill Road fair.

My attention wandered from the Labour Club, across the road to the Romsey Mill. At the same time, I began to settle into the micro-environment afforded by the bench. I became dimly aware of the background sounds of car engines, as they waited at the lights next to where I sat before slowly moving off. This sound became repetitive, almost unnoticed and strangely soothing. It became a sort of aid to noticing. Outside Romsey Mill was a tall conical tree, part obscuring the building, and behind it another bench. I had never noticed either of these objects before and wondered how on earth that was possible. The Romsey Mill serves as the local polling station and to vote is the only time I’ve ever set foot in it. It is the home of a Christian based charity that started in 1980, in the building that was formerly a Methodist chapel. I noticed two blocked up apertures next to the main door; a small bricked up arched window and just below that, too low for any sort of normal window to have existed, was a brown oblong, a 1970s sideboard had been inserted to occupy the space and fitted perfectly.

I shifted to observing the people passing by. There was a random and rich diversity among those that I noticed. An enigmatic, sage-like ageing man with what looked like a kit-bag drifted by, possibly on a Saturday morning derive of his own. Maybe just going to the shops. A singing man with dreadlocks went by on a bike, I heard him before I saw him. He looked oblivious and carefree, in comparison to a group of hipster-types who’s man-bun attempts to a similar direction were clearly carefully and self-consciously curated. They were outnumbered by the number of old ladies I saw, heading towards the broadway utilising a range of mobility aids from the walking sticks to the full on electric mobility scooters. These were the pioneers in the new age of electric transport. I only witnessed one Voi scooter, but several white vans. As I became even more settled in my bench enclave and reached a point of imagined invisibility, the background engine sounds aided an almost meditative state.

After a while I became aware of a distant chanting, coming from the direction of the bridge. This slowly roused me and I remembered that there was a protest due to take place, organised by the traders and others from the pro-bridge reopening faction. As mentioned previously the bridge closure had caused controversy and division. The County Council were due to vote the following week to decide whether to keep the bridge closed or reopen it, while a period of consultation took place. The bridge had initially been closed with no consultation, one followed some time later but was disregarded, due to concerns that the councils consultation system allowed the same people to comment more than once. The traders saw this protest as a last stand. As their voices grew louder, I was roused from my immersive state and curious to know what was going on up the road. I realised I had only been on the bench for around twenty minutes but it felt like a lot longer. I wrenched myself into a standing position, then removed myself from its immersive atmosphere, as I passed beyond the hollyhocks and manhole covers. I looked back to the bench and its surroundings, a segment of space that was almost tangibly separate and off-kilter from its immediate surrounds, I felt like it was a protected and protective space.

 

The protest was in full swing as I passed it crossing the bridge. There were chants, with the aid of megaphones of ‘one Mill Road, one community’. Meanwhile, the Romsey City Councillor, Dave Baigent, a vocal pro-closure proponent, stood among the protestors in silence. The scene was a microcosm of the division the bridge closure had created and the chanting seemed almost anacronistic.

Further down the road was a delegation of people from the pro-closure faction, specifically from a group called ‘Mill Road 4 People’. This group had sprung up relatively recently with a professional looking website showing quite detailed ideas for how the bridge could stay closed and asking for views to help make this work. There has been much speculation as to who might be behind the group, with the finger being firmly pointed by several social media commentators at Cam Cycle, a vocal pro-bridge closure lobbying group. While the rhetoric and ideas of both groups seem very similar, I don’t know whether this is true. As I passed through the delegation, one of them stopped me and handed me a leaflet. I expressed my reservations around keeping the bridge closed. I asked what about the traders claims that they were seeing a fall in takings. This was brushed off, and it was pointed out that several new business had opened during the closure and these would attract more to open as footfall increased. I wondered though, who were these new businesses for and whose feet would be falling? The emphasis was largely on the more artisan end of the food market, even beyond this to include something called a ‘Fish Butchery’, which struck me as something beyond pretentious.

My earlier fears, which had dissipated earlier in the protective environment of the bench, returned. The street was in danger of becoming something beyond the parody of Nathan Barley, with its various forms of e-scooter transport gliding along the road, a proliferation of serious faced joggers and high end eateries with outside seating becoming ever more prevalent, making ambulatory activity that bit more awkward. I wondered if the solution to Cambridge’s pollution and traffic problems had to be the imposition of a ‘continental cafe culture’ and the creation of a destination resembling Hoxton aspiring to be Hampstead in Mill Road, which is what many on the pro-closure side seemed to be pushing for. Certainly, the Covid-era seems to have accelerated a move towards such an environment. It was probably on the cards anyway, but the shift has been stark in its rapidity. I felt like I had been suffering from ‘Future Shock’ over the last few month as a result. As I moved along the street, it didn’t help when I noticed Fagitos was still ‘closed for refurbishment’. I wondered if it would ever really re-open and of so in what form. The legendary late night kebab joint has been unrivalled since the 1990s and is one of Mill Road’s most iconic institutions, but has been closed for months. This seemed an ominous portent that the direction of travel was set for good. There would be no return to the comfy, slightly grubby Mill Road of ‘the before time’.

As I retracted my steps, I passed by the protestors banner still standing at the foot of the bridge. ‘Open The Bridge. Consult!’ its shouted. In my deflated state, the banner seemed to express the futility of any attempt to prevent the worst extremities of gentrification imposing a more sterile and expensive version of Mill Road. But at least the bench was there, unaffected, at least for now.

 

Footnote: The week after the walk/bench sit, the County Council voted to re-open the bridge while a period of consultation takes place. I can’t say I’ve noticed the traffic get much busier as a result but I suppose it is the school holidays. I’ll find another bench to try out during this next stage of flux, until the next stage of the bridge saga.

Psycho-geographic post-card no. 3: Hemsby

 

I've finally got around to finishing writing and 'posting'  this final 'postcard'', just shy of a month after we got back from Norfolk. Thus even surpassing my usual tardiness when sending physical postcards.

We walked from the car park at Winterton, where sadly the cafe on the clifftop had disappeared, leaving behind just part of its floor.  A coffee concession  had appeared in its place, slightly more inland, but not far from the remains of the old cafe floor.  The concession of two silver round edged vans that somehow managed to look like they belonged to both space age and of 1970s American dragster racing tracks.

Winterton is a village near Yarmouth, but a much quieter concern. It is primarily of interest for the beach and the peripheral natural area which consists of a gorse-infested green corridor separated from the beach by the higher sand-dunes. It is also the beginning (if starting to the North)  of a continuous zone of connected coastal villages and  holiday parks, that become more built up until finally becoming Great Yarmouth.

As we emerged onto the beach, it appeared a wedding was taking place. A long table had been laid out  with a white cloth and places set. The table was perpendicular to the sea's edge and not far from it. A bunch of people were gathered photographing a couple dressed in bride and groom attire. A little further along, another gaggle of people were photographing a young woman posing in a dress/sheet type affair. These people all seemed connected. We couldn't tell if we had walked through the middle of a photoshoot for some type of high-end magazine, a student art project or possibly even a real wedding (this seemed unlikely). The people seemed oblivious to us and other people and their dogs drifting through the middle of whatever event they were part of. It was as if the wedding scene had been superimposed, as if projected from another place where it really belonged. It was only when we got a bit further away from it that I realised how off kilter it seemed.

Soon after, following a relatively deserted and uneventful beach strectch, we headed inland to the green corridor behind the dunes. The environment here had a prehistoric quality. On entering 'the valley'  as it is named on the map, we became the people that time forgot.  For a while the environment resembled a pre-human landscape. But after a while we began to emerge back into the present. Sporadically, bungalow-like dwellings appeared in the dunes. Inland, chalets began to replace the wilderness. Soon we arrived alongside the 'Funpark' at Hemsby. A large slide loomed up like a relic from a golden age of the seaside's more garish maifestations, rudely interrupting an environment that had up until now been mostly devoid of human paraphernalia or people. The slide marked the point of a definate shift from one type of coastal experience  to another. We entered a realm where most of the elements of 'The Seaside' that I recalled from childhood holidays were present.

Away from the near deserted beach and sand-dunes, where the only sounds were the sea, wind and birds, we were thrust into a cacophony of very different noises. And smells. Hemsby Beach, as distinct from the more inland village part of Hemsby, consists of one main drag that bifurcates various holiday parks/resorts. We had emerged somewhere about halfway down, in the epicentre of a realm of fish and chips, amusement arcades and cheap gift shops selling all manner of seaside ephemera. A number of  plastic moulded garish anthropomorphic characters, most representative of junk food items that were available in the various food outlets, appeared at various intervals along the street.

The smells and sounds were overwhelming in their sensory assault, but at the same time reassuring. With one or two minor updates, they remained exactly as a recalled from holidays with my parents in the 1980s in nearby Great Yarmouth. Great Yarmouth was a much larger concern than Hemsby, but here many of the essential elements were contained in microcosm. 

I drifted past an amusement arcade, 'Palace Caesar'. It's facade was apparently unchanged since the 1980s, other than the presumably originally bright red plastic frontage having faded to hot water bottle pink. From the blur of sound coming  from inside, a distinct few seconds of arcane ZX Spectrum era noise emerged that I recognised from an ancient arcade machine, but I couldn't place which one. I passed a 'Captain Pugwash' children's ride out the front, a character I'd assumed long forgotten by most and probably unknown by children today. 

The whole stretch felt like it had never left the era of space invaders, sugary donuts, fairgrounds and dangerous blow-up things proffered by gift shops to take in the sea. There was a faded quality, slightly washed out like a Polaroid photograph, accompanied by an analogue soundtrack of off-kilter  seaside noises and arcane seaside smells.

There were no dangerous inflatables or 'saucy' seaside postcards for sale (or indeed any postcards). Otherwise the place was the seaside of old, nothing had changed. It felt immune to the sort of creeping gentrification found elsewhere along the Norfolk Coast (and more widely) as if it existed within an invisible shield that preserved it.

I felt reassured by this small enclave of old school 'seaside-ness', and wished there was time to visit Great Yarmouth up the coast, but that would need a full day to do it justice. Possibly two.

Later back at the caravan, I read that Great Yarmouth had recently been ranked sixth from bottom in a Which survey of the UK's best seaside resorts. The findings at first, seemed puzzling. The Which commentator said something along the lines of 'biggest definitely is not best' and suggested that places with fairgrounds (of which Yarmouth has two) had done particularly badly. When it became apparent that one of the main criteria used to rate resorts was 'peace and quiet', then the survey results made much more sense.  The inbuilt assumption was that peace and quiet is always more desirable  than the sort of noise, smells and sights places like Hemsby and Great Yarmouth had to offer. This bias meant that the quieter, posher resorts did much better. But my feeling was that Which were asking an incomplete set of questions to a limited set of people.  There was apparently no balancing questions about 'largest and noisiest fairground', 'best Victorian-era seaside resort architecture' or 'finest so-bad-its-a must waxworks', which surely would have moved Great Yarmouth up the ranking considerably. I doubted many of those I'd seen wandering along Hemsby Beach earlier had been among those surveyed. I doubted also that they would give much credence to the survey rankings of post lockdown 'staycation' resorts, which had a definite smug 'crap towns' quality about it. 

The Which survey, and it's inbuilt bias against places like Yarmouth or Skegness, along with my all to brief dip into the old school seaside resort in Hemsby, gave me an immense  yearning to visit Great Yarmouth. I vowed to get there before the year is out. If I do, another psycho-geographic postcard will be forthcoming. To consider such an excursion a 'staycation', now the parlance used to describe a holiday anywhere in the UK, not just one where you stay at home, seems ludicrous. Instead, particularly post lockdown, I'm imaging the trip will be more akin to a journey into another world.