An Enigma, Wrapped Up In A White Envelope Part 1

Posted on Dec 2, 2025 by TanGental

Mazy Moiste’s friends, of whom there were fewer by the year would not, if asked, describe Mazy as a precise woman. Vague, yes. Hazy Mazy at school. But there was one small element where her behaviour had a tinge of consistency. Every week day she took her lunch – which might comprise anything from a week old lamb jalfrezi and ritz crackers to a dozen Wethers Originals and a day old slice of toasted tofu – in Absolom Park. Sometimes she sat on the wall that surrounded the chickweed choked pond, on other occasions she might find a seat on one of the memorial benches – though not that dedicated to Desmond Twoberry as it was another Twoberry, Millie, who had made school hell and his name triggered unwelcome memories. Once she sat on the grass, only to find the park keeper had sprinkled everywhere with some small grey pellets – she missed the warning sign – which you couldn’t see but which quickly migrated inside her tights and caused her some consternation.

If there were other regulars, Mazy did not notice. At least she did not notice their faces. She never looked up on entering the park and was more likely to have recognised recurrent footwear than another’s face.

Once seated she closed her eyes and sang songs from her favourite musicals to herself, between mouthfuls of her eccentric repast. In her head she performed these numbers with a gusto and skill bettered by few; to those close by she seemed somewhat unhinged, her mumblings which rose and fell in ways never intended by the lyricist creating a cordon sanitaire around her.

It was therefore a significant shock when Mazy, having finished the last mouthful of her hummus filled donut opened her eyes to put her Tupperware back in her bag and found herself facing a bearded man, with a penetrating stare.

Instinct told her to look away; the stare, two green eyes flecked with yellow told her otherwise. For the first time in an age Mazy took in the details of a face. Indeed, in less than a minute she was more familiar with the details of this face than her own, since she had, over time developed something of an arm’s length relationship with her bathroom mirror.

The eyebrows were mostly black, sparse and inclined to curve away from the centre; two little frown lines sat between those brows, the left twice the length of the right; the nose…

‘Hello, Mazy.’

Where instinct had failed her, his words did the trick and she dropped her gaze to her lap. She focused on the plastic box and clicked the lid shut. She slipped it inside her bag. She stood and carefully moved past the slightly scuffed brogues, heading for the nearest, if least convenient gate.

By the time she was back at her desk, the encounter felt like a dream, a surreal almost out of body experience. Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t shake off the sense of foreboding this meet up had given her.

Thus it was that Mazy didn’t head for the station after she had shut her computer, had a pee, creamed her hands carefully and let herself be herded through security by the mish mash of her colleagues equally keen to depart. No, today Mazy went back to the park, to the bench where she had had lunch. If she had been asked why she couldn’t really have said. She might have proffered an explanation about exorcising a ghost, but such light wit was not Mazy’s to impart.

The park, unlike between twelve and two thirty was almost empty, the only footwear Mazy encountered being a pair of red kitten-heeled ankle boots between the gate and the bench. She stood quite still, looking down at the green metallic slats, at the white envelope propped against the back. In neat capitals someone had printed her name.

She lifted her gaze and forced herself to turn through a full circle. The man with the green flecked eyes stood by a gate Mazy had never used. He was speaking to a woman wearing red ankle boots, though at this distance Mazy couldn’t be sure of the type of heel. As she watched the man gave the woman something. She glanced briefly at Mazy then left, followed shortly by the man.

Mazy picked up the envelope and put it in her bag, before heading home. Maybe she would open it later. Maybe not.

Posted in miscellany, short story | 25 Comments

Last Resorts

Posted on Nov 30, 2025 by TanGental

I was back in Lowestoft, this time taking in the southern stretches. It’s very mush a classic Victorian holiday resort what with its pier and its promenade and its pavilion. It’s also rather down at heel, doing its best to hold hard to its natural benefits, most notably oodles of pristine sand and its past glories while hoping to find ways to pull in today’s discerning vacationers.

I wonder how it fares, on a hot day in July. Does it still pull in the punters, offering plenty of free parking on the streets behind the prom, a lot of outlets dedicated to selling an excess of sugar and a riot of entertainment which isn’t so much AI as You Wot?

It was cold, overnight snow flurries had given way to squally showers and deep blue skies and a temperature that makes even the most robust thermometer want to scurry indoors.

Boy does this take me back.

If you followed the coastline south, moving as a single minded crow might, rather than hugging the actual contours then in about 75 miles you would bump into the north Kent coast. That part of Kent has its famous resorts, Margate, Ramsgate, Broadstairs and Whitstable amongst them. In the honourable mentioned category you would find Herne Bay where my gran, my mother’s mother lived and where my earliest holiday memories are fixed. For two weeks every summer and a week at Easter we’d go and stay. Well, mum and dad and my brother in the summer and just us boys at Easter.

The beach was shite, large unforgiving stones, the pier long and boring, the promenade full of adults only too happy to share their don’ts with us.

We had a fantastic time, mainly because, for a lot of it, my brother and I roamed free.

Walking along Lowestoft’s prom, I was transported back, the two of us heading off to go crabbing, or climb the cliffs looking for fossils, or chasing butterflies in the open grassland above. We played no arcade games, had no money to buy anything, could only go indoors at the library. That must have happened here, but nowadays, no parent would or could countenance it. Yes, it is a loss.

My stroll started in a little park, Kensington Gardens with a classical English resort’s boating pond – they call it a ‘lake’ but that does rather smack of hubris – and formal rock garden. The tea room was closed and the cold keeping most hardy dog walkers at bay. One lady fed the ducks with old bread. Even that seems rather old school, given we are exhorted to feed wild birds something more natural, not stale white sliced.

I meandered along the prom. Peering out to sea you can’t miss these two strange structures. I had to look them up and, would you credit it, they aren’t dull weather stations or tidal flow meters but something rather splendid.

They are Kittiwake hotels, designed by engineers and ornithologists to mimic the cliff homes of these birds. Kittiwakes were first seen breeding in Lowestoft in 1958 and the colony grew, using the old south pavilion as their home. When that was demolished a purpose-built wall in the harbour did the trick but local foxes found this in the 1990s devastating the colony. Survivors moved to the current pier, the Claremont but the owners took anti gull measures because of the inevitable mess and the colony teetered on the brink of extinction at the turn of the century. Kittiwakes are an endangered species so something had to be done. Hence these beauties. Sometimes there is good news.

A lot of the buildings overlooking the sea are grand, imposing even and hark to those Victorian days of its glory years. Now, while some look good others have slipped tiles and flaking stucco. The brutal salt-saturated easterly winds don’t do buildings any favours.

There are more gardens, the occasional statues and metal sculptures, before Claremont pier. It’s meant to be a fun house but I’m not sure Pirates of the Claremont is aimed at me. I stopped for coffee and a pause from the nipping breeze before i set off again.

There’s a rather nice memorial to composer, Benjamin Brittain who grew up here, showing him as a young man. I wonder who else Lowestoft consider to be their famous sons.

The next two statues are of Triton, sea god. The sea wasn’t really doing his rep any favours, more lapping languidly than surf’s up.

I paused at the pavilion to use the facilities – coffee + cold = well, you know and turned back.

Having cruised the esplanade, I dropped to the lower prom, at beach level. The sand is lovely, stretching for miles so you get the attraction. The dogs were here in numbers, alongside some beach volleyball courts. You’d have to be brave to play here, especially given the standard costumes. I seem to recall during the London Olympics the then London mayor, one B Johnson describing the beach volleyballers, playing during a downpour as looking like ‘oiled otters’. Not today.

Along the sea wall there were lines of beach huts in a variety of shapes and sizes, one set looking rather old school, another very modernistic. I approve.

Soon enough though, I was back up the slope to the park where I started. I can see why Lowestoft was popular, if you enjoy sand and endless sea. But if you want something more, as I guess so many do, then this isn’t for you.

I looked south from my position on the prom, where the more developed elements of the resort end and the beach gives way to the scruffy dunes of Pakefield beach. I think that’s probably more my thing.

Posted in holidays, miscellany, suffolk, walking | 22 Comments

From Miner’s Cottages To My Trees

Posted on Nov 28, 2025 by TanGental

I live in South London, surrounded by trees both ancient and modern. I love trees and will do a lot to keep them healthy. But sometimes a branch dies or blocks out the light or the whole thing needs a hair cut to stay healthy.

Here, I need two permissions to do anything to my trees. One is from our local government who have imposed a neighbourhood Tree Preservation order on us, covering most of Dulwich where we live. It’s not that uncommon and I don’t mind. But it’s a recent, post 2010 innervation.

Unlike the other requirement, which goes back to 1974.

And for this we have to thank the Labour governments of 1964-70 and their determination to protect northern mining communities, the bedrock of their supporters.

A lot of the mining towns were built by the mine owners, the housing being pretty bleak with no modern facilities, a number were ‘back to back’, the two buildings touching. Not much fun but they were home to the families who occupied them.

To digress a little, nowadays the rear of houses are generally held to have to be at least twenty-one metres apart. This distance is not based on fire spreading risks or airflow or similar, but was the distance decided by two urban planners in 1902 as being far enough so they could not see each others nipples through their shirts and thus would ensure suitable modesty for female home users. The Victorians codified the rules and laws of Football, cricket, tennis and rugby and much besides so should be so surprised they codified building standards based on nipple visibility. It makes so much sense.

Anyway these dwellings were held by many on long leases which eventually ended. Thus generations of families would suddenly lose their homes. When voters get angry, politicians get moving so a piece of legislation was passed in 1967 that gave tenants of long (over 21 year) leases the right for a new lease up to 50 years or the right to buy the freehold – ie acquire the property outright. They called it leasehold enfranchisement and was pretty damned radical. Compulsory purchase had been a thing since the building of the railways in the first half of the 19th century – eminent domain is the US equivalent I believe – but those powers were imposed for some common good – to build railways, roads, schools, power stations etc. This was different, benefiting as it did one individual by removing the long held rights of another.

One in the eye for the rapacious capitalist elites, you might think. Power to the people and all that.

But aren’t there always unintended consequences?

Once upon a time London was the small area, now known as the Square Mile which is in fact bigger than a square mile, comprising the area within the ancient walls.Outside of those walls but well within modern London were large estates of agricultural land that was gradually absorbed into the expanding capital as the Industrial Revolution increased the population and the wealth. Most well known is the Grosvenor Estate centred on Westminster and owned down the years by the Dukes of Westminster (what a surprise). Rather famously the only embassy not owned outright by the American Government used to be the old one in Grosvenor Square because the then Duke refused to sell, granting a 99 year lease instead.

Which is a good illustration of that attitudes of the land owners to the growing need for houses (and offices and shops, but mostly houses). Where most housing developers bought the land outright before selling on the houses they had built, these large land owners didn’t want to give up their assets. They took a very long term view, instead granting 75 or 99 year leases at a small or negligible rent (there had to be something, hence the fiction of a peppercorn rent – in all my years in property, never did I see a peppercorn change hands).

The builder had a plot on which he could build and sell and the buyer a house which he would own long enough to get some value from the building costs. At the end of the term the land, with whatever house was left went back to the landowner to start again. If, as was the case in Westminster, but also Chelsea, north of Oxford Street, and in my neck of the woods, Dulwich, that was the only way you got to own a house in a sought after area, you took the lease, accepting, no doubt reluctantly that you had a wasting asset.

As the areas’ popularity increased and trains etc made commuting a realistic prospect, the value went up and the occupiers became mainly the professional classes, the well heeled upper middle classes. Not the same demographic as lived in the mining towns that became the focus of the Labour government. Neither group liked it but they had to bear it.

Until 1967 when the first Labour government since 1945 with a decent majority turned its laser-like focus on this issue. This was a radical government. They had already passed the first sex and race discrimination legislation, the first equal pay act and supported private members bills on allowing abortion and abolishing the death penalty, as well as, in that same year, legalising homosexual relationships between those over 21.

Now it must be said that those in the large London houses we are talking about were not the natural constituency for such a government – they were as likely to vote for this lot as any number of fattened fowl are for the up coming holidays. And the idea that Harold Wilson and his cohort would do them a massive was as likely as the current lot doing anything coherent.

This legislation soon came to the attention of this large house owners. Could it be true? For a price that was below the market value of the freehold, they could turn their wasting assets (whatever they had left on their leases) into a long term pension that increased in value year on year, just by being where it was.

Sad to relate not many mining communities took advantage of this new set of rights. They didn’t have the capital even for a below market price. But the denizens of Dulwich and Westminster, well served by willing lawyers certainly did.

The landed estates fought tooth and nail to block this tide but eventually lost in the High Court in the early 1970s. Their only payback was to create a court sanctioned Scheme of Management under which the same sort of covenants that impacted the properties when leasehold were continued to be imposed on these new freeholds. Controls for instance on the external appearance of the house, what any new house looks like, changes of use, etc.

My current building works have required me to seek Estate consent alongside that needed from the Local Authority. They have different requirements which is a pain, but it is what it is.

And this applies to my trees. They too are covered by the Scheme.

Initially, the Scheme was much hated. Indeed when we bought this house in 1990, the lawyer who did the legals (I have a rule not to advise myself on important matters) described the estate, with whom she had had to deal a lot, as the FBBs. If I tell you the BBs references busybodies, it doesn’t take a Poirot to work out the F.

Recently, though the estate asked if their purpose had been served and did we freeholders, impacted by the 1974 Scheme of Management want to see if scrapped or radically changed removing some of the more contentious controls?

Well over 65% of those replying to the survey said keep it. This was on the sound basis that, as individuals we might want the flexibility to decide what the front of our house looks like or whether we want to remove a perfectly healthy tree and consider ourselves best placed to decide, but we certainly don’t trust the other muppets who live here to make a sensible decision for the benefit of the collective. So we keep it.

That’s another unexpected and unintended consequence. We’re all socialists now, happy to give up our persona freedoms and working for the common good. Maybe those mid twentieth century politicians were playing the long game with this law, much like the old land owners did.

PS. The estate was originally owned by John Alleyn, the actor manager behind some of Shakespeare’s works. He put it in trust in the seventeenth century to support the education of the young men of Dulwich. Nowadays the school his foundation served, Dulwich College is fabulously wealthy, has a beautiful main building and runs three local schools: the College for boys, JAGs (James Allen’s Girl’s) and a mixed school, Alleyns. It still owns the commercial premises locally which generates a large income as well as the Picture Gallery, the oldest public art gallery in the UK, the roads and common land which are maintained so Dulwich remains unique and retains the character that makes it popular. We have the woods which like Hampstead in the north of London creates a unique character to this most distinct of London’s suburbs. Here’s a few images I took a few years ago.

The original school building
The alms houses and chapel
How our streets and pavements look
The Picture Gallery
Our unique signage
Dulwich College
Posted in Dulwich, law, miscellany | 25 Comments

Wet/Not Wet

Posted on Nov 26, 2025 by TanGental

Statistically it stopped raining

An hour ago.

Only it didn’t.

They said, sixty percent chance

Of sun.

But it was one hundred percent

Nailed on rain.

It’ll be different next time.

Swings and roundabouts.

We never learn.

*

She said,

‘You’re the one.’

After she’d said,

‘Your baking sucks.’

I focused on my baking.

Two months later,

I emerged with the perfect loaf.

She said,

‘You’ve nothing left to prove.’

Just before,

‘I’m moving in with Mike.’

*

Hero to zero.

Mr One hundred percent

To the Nowhere man.

Like the weather,

People have a habit

Of reverting to the mean.

Don’t fall for a mathematician.

Part of my Randomised Rumblings while looking out of the back door.

Posted in miscellany, poems, poetry | 9 Comments

My Greatest Love – said no one ever

Posted on Nov 25, 2025 by TanGental

Based on Esther’s most recent Limerick prompt

With those dread words, ‘let’s go shopping’
My heart sank, all hope was dropping.
She said, ‘it’ll be fun,’
And, ‘you’ll be glad you’ve come’
When I knew the truth: hells a’popping!

Whenever I spend some time shopping,
There’s often a dash of flipping and flopping
I’m in a prison
Of my own indecision
And I have no way of ever stopping
Posted in limericks, miscellany | 6 Comments

Djinn And Bitters

Posted on Nov 24, 2025 by TanGental

Walter Torture loved nothing more than packing up his Tupperware with cheese sarnies, lacing his boots and pulling on his tweed jacket before heading out for a day’s treasure hunting. He was a detectorist and gloried in his lifetime’s ambition to sweep the whole of the English coastline with his pride and joy, his twelve volt, dual grip, vibro-matric metal detector. He hoped he’d return to the pier at Southend from where he set out on his ambitious quest to complete the whole coast (accepting he didn’t want to get blown up – Ministry of Defence land was to be excluded – battered by waves, so inaccessible cliffs were also off the list – and embarrassed – no nudist colonies) before he met his maker.

After eighteen months, two dog attacks, three accusations of stalking, a failed attempt at CPR on a Shetland pony and a night when he became convinced he was the reincarnation of Gracie Fields after ingesting an hallucinogenic mushroom, he had reached a rather drab part of Kent. And in truth, even Walter’s unremittingly cheerful disposition was being challenged. He had found not so much as a milk bottle top for three days and he only had two more before he would have used up his annual leave and have to return to his current employment oiling a troupe of performing sea lions at Southend zoo.

Indeed so deep had he sunk into a slough of despond that he nearly missed the tell-tale ‘ping!’ – Walter always felt it should be accompanied by such a hopeful piece of punctuation – and hurriedly backtracked.

No, he enthused, that was definitely a ping! Laying down the Beast, he opened his toolkit and extracted his eight inch sand and gravel shoveller, highly appropriate for the gritty though unshingled beach he was on. He checked around, happy to note no one was about. This wasn’t because Walter was the sort of detectorist who would fail to report any finds to the appropriate authorities; rather he didn’t want to be mistaken for a mass murderer, intent on hiding his latest victim.

He almost missed it, after all the initial excitement. Something caught his attention, out of the corner of his eye. If he had been asked to describe it Walter might have said someone waving if that someone was a muddy pebble. He stared at the small nobbly lump for a couple of seconds and began to turn back to his digging when it sort of wobbled.

Unsure Walter lifted the lump, wondering if he shouldn’t maybe have a sandwich to boost his sugars when he realised it felt warm. No, that was nonsense. He touched a pebble next to it. Hmm, he thought, it is warm.

That’s when Walter changed the course of his life. Well, the next twenty minutes or so. He brushed off the dirt.

In Walter’s hand was a ring, a signet ring made of two different metals, that were twisted together like rope. Not that Walter noticed. No, what filled Walter’s attention was the black stain that was leaking out of the ring like ink into a blotter. The word ‘smudge’ popped into Walter’s head. Yes, whatever it was, was smudging the air in front of Walter.

As Walter sat back on the beach, stunned the smudge grew until it took the form of a small person, apparently seated, though there was no chair, and with one of those headsets on, beloved of call centre operatives. Said person didn’t appear to have noticed Walter as she – Walter knew the person was female because she had breasts, a feature Walter was already trying hard to ignore – was speaking as if to someone else.

‘Hi. We have registered your summons but we are sorry but we are right out of Djinns just now. If you’d care to leave your name and your first wish we will be right back to… oh shoot!’

Walter had been spotted. He was grinning. It was a marketing device, from one of those distilleries. Very clever and all but just a cheap piece of tatt that…’

‘Hey, Walter, mate, who are you calling cheap? And this is not tatt.’ The woman’s finger extended disconcertingly fast and tapped the ring that Walter was still holding. ‘If you must know, not that anyone asks, it’s made from orpelite and bergantine. And of course you’ve not heard of them because they’re only used to make Djinn casks which everyone knows are as rare as hen’s teeth and…’ she stopped.

Walter was waving. ‘What are you?’

‘What…? Oh that’s nice. I’m not a what, I’m a who. If you must know and I’m not sure you do, frankly, I’m part of the Djinn support, the client facing part of Mythical Wishes, the leading supplier of life changing makeovers whose goal…’

He was waving again.

‘Yes, Walter?’

‘Gin support? Like tonic? Or bitter lemon?’

‘Not Gin. D-jinn. As in genie, that twat Aladdin, you know? Though frankly he should have been held to his NDA but oh no, management thought we needed to be “out there” embracing our public. Though it is true that before that self serving little soul seller got his gig with Aesop, every time someone found one of our casks they shat themselves, so having some prior product awareness did make it a mite more pleasant than… What?’

‘Are you a Djinn?’

‘Me? Have you ever heard of a woman Djinn?’

‘Well no…’

‘And why do you think that is?’

‘I… maybe…’

‘Here’s a clue.’ She jiggled her bosoms. ‘I know you spotted them. You have been craning your neck in an effort not to stare.’

‘I… it’s…’

‘It’s okay, Walter, mate. It’s totally understandable. Think about it. If the first genie, indeed all genies hadn’t been fat blokes, but triple breasted women what do you think the likes of Aesop or Walt would have focused on? My winning smile, my engaging personality…’

‘No, I suppose not, though…’

‘Yes?’

‘I wouldn’t say you were exactly engaging.’

The woman visibly stiffened, though set might have been a better descriptor. ‘That’s nice. Here I am, doing what is quite honestly a crap job supporting a lazy bunch of overweight egos with a gifting complex, who take great delight in twisting wishes and making our clients feel like they’ve wasted the ultimate in lottery wins, and is it any surprise the occasional scintilla of snark secretes itself into my speech? I think I can already guess how you’ll compete the survey.’

‘Survey?’

‘Oh you know the kind of thing.’ She coughed and deepened her voice. ‘After you finish your call please stay on the line and answer four simple questions about your experience today. It will take less than a minute and it will help us improve our service for the future.’

‘Really?’

‘Good grief, no. You’re getting three free wishes. What’s there to improve? Though in your case…’

‘Yes?’

‘Here’s the thing, Walter, mate. Ever since that stupid movie, it’s become sort of expected that the last wish will be to free the Djinn. Which is all very well for the Djinn concerned but it’s totally buggered up our business model. You any idea how long it takes to become a fully functioning mythical construct?

‘No, not really. It wasn’t on the syllabus at school.’

‘Nice one, Walter. A long time. More than a couple of your eons, let’s just say that. So we’re a bit short, capiche? Hence, we’ve had to resort to the likes of me, doing a holding job. Imagine how much fun that is.’

‘Aren’t you a Djinn, then?’

‘Me? Well, yes. In the sense, I react to having my ring rubbed.’

‘I imagine most would. And can you grant wishes? Rather than just note them down?’

‘I could…’

‘And if I offered to use the first one to reduce the boobage for all female Djinn?’

‘You’d do that?’

‘Certainly. It might help solve your current staffing crisis.’

‘And what about a second wish? I mean, hypothetically speaking.’

‘Oh, nothing much. Just allow me to find more treasure during my circumlocution of England’s beaches than anyone else. Not a ridiculous amount, of course. Is that a third wish?

The female Djinn had sat back in her non-chair. ‘I think we can review your phrasing so it’s just treated as the one wish. What would be your third?’

‘Hmm. Can I save it for when I get back to Southend?’

She cocked her head to one side. ‘You’re not going to free me then?’

Walter smiled. ‘You’ll have to be patient. So, how does that work for you?’

The woman Djinn took a moment. Then, rather startling Walter she swelled to the size of Walter’s peddledashed bungalow and boomed, ‘Walter Torture, what is your first wish?’ And then, in a quieter voice, ‘and please stop staring at my tits, would you?’

Posted in fantasy, miscellany, short story | 24 Comments

Amongst Friands

Posted on Nov 22, 2025 by TanGental

Word has reached us from deepest darkest Norfolk to say that Vicky, the tortoise who we cared for for twenty plus years after the previous custodians upsticked and moved to California is now in her holding pattern pre hibernation.

She has fallen on her feet, mind you as her new custodian is besotted, having signed her up for tortoise club and encouraged/cajoled her father into making a bespoke hutch for their guest.

Tortoise club, by the way involves special meetings to ensure her diet is correct, she is the appropriate weight, her shell is sound and has all she needs by way of books and writing materials to while away her dull days of hibernation. Something like that, anyway.

Indeed everything in the world of Vicky was rosy, or dandelions at least. That is until a damp meah sort of period in October when she went missing.

Now this caused a transatlantic frisson of concern as we have a WhatsApp group with three generations of Vicky custodians involved, at least emotionally in her every move.

Daily bulletins were avidly consumed, relegating the latest embarrassments of Andrew Mountanythinginaskirt and who shafted who on Celebrity Traitors to an also ran status.

Happily Vicky, who had buried herself, channelling her inner POW three separate times in a row ready for her Big Sleep and we can all breathe for a few months.

And in my case, make some new friands.

Posted in Animals, miscellany, pets | 18 Comments

Go East, As No One Said

Posted on Nov 20, 2025 by TanGental

The British Isles is often said to look like a kneeling man. If that is so then East Anglia where I’m currently residing is the buttocks and the town of Lowestoft, a small pimple on its arse.

That allusion is unfair though as with so many of the seaside resorts on our east coast, Lowestoft has seen better days.

It still has it theatre and it’s still big(ish) in its fishing, but the days when you could have two weeks holiday with candyfloss, kiss-me-quick hats, Mr Whippy ice cream, a bucket and spade and still have change for a saucy postcard to your nan are long gone.

Even if it’s living on its history, therefore, doesn’t mean that history isn’t beguiling. As I hope this ramble around its northern ramparts will reveal. Sad to report this stroll was well over Dog’s max of 4 kilometres – even he is beyond miles these days – but I may dig something out of the archive for you.

I parked near the station by the harbour – cue ship-pic – and headed along the pedestrianised shopping street towards the old town high street. You pass flying birds sculpture installed in 2006.

There are quite a fewthe old buildings, a sculpture or two and a rather defaced Banksy that, belatedly someone has covered in a Perspex sheet. Oh and an owl on the side of the Lowestoft tandoori celebrating the local bird life

There were also a large number of inserts in the paving, some better than others. I’ve not been able to identify who commissioned them.

Once we migrated from the functional modern to the old, via a large high street sign, we encountered the first of the passages that are a curious of this town.

Originally these were paths that led from the town and its inns and houses down to the coast and the fishing boats. The medieval pattern remains with these narrow paths, called ‘the Scores’, some less attractive than others but each with its own little piece of history.

Some were named after inns, some local landowners.

Some have a more interesting story. One was named Rant Score, after King George II escaped up it during a storm. We aren’t told what he was ranting about.

Or maybe you prefer Martin’s Score with its winding path, its embedded pavers depicting fishing boat types down the years and a wooden post that commemorates the victory, probably on away goals against the Spanish Armada in 1588. It is replaced every 100 years apparently. There’s also a curiously Banskyesque piece of street art too.

Or Mariner’s Score with its fine arch

Eventually though you reach Lighthouse Score that leads down to the park, a good place for a bite to eat.

Not forgetting the lighthouse of course. I do like Lighthouses.

The park advertised three small museums around its boundary and I fancied visiting one. That was before I was served a fruit scone the size of Dorset which changed my plans rather. Instead I had a decko at some sculptures, some sea debris and a plaque recoding the sea level in the 1953 floods. Sea defences are better now and this tragedy was a prompt that led to the Thames barrier being built but you can’t hold back the sea.

I was now on the coast, staring at the North Sea. It’s not the most attractive body of water and certainly not one that entices me to wild swimming. Personally I enjoy my holidays without cryogenically freezing my arse off at the same time.. My goal was to reach Ness Point, the most easterly part of these isles. You’d only know this because someone squandered a dollop of tax payers’ cash on this dial thingy. There are a few pictures, copies of something by JMW Turner and Lowestoft Man, a portrait painting on the side of a stone chimney. The dial has a number of towns on its rim, showing where and how far they are from this rather bleak little point. I couldn’t spot any, despite good visibility.

Turning away from the sea and wandering under the enormous wind turbine, one is hit with a sickly sweet scent. For many years the British have had to put up with a lot of sneering about the quality of our cooking, especially from our neighbours, the French. Though as my old ma would say, they only made great sauces because they were shite at preparing the meat. Our critics do have a point, mind you. We have foisted some right old crap onto the nation’s plates. Fish paste, luncheon meat, spam, primula cheese, ice creams where the one missing ingredient is cream, powdered coffee, powdered milk, powdered anything really apart from custard. And onto this extensive list I would put the humble and far from beguiling fish finger.

That was what was behind me. Bird’s Eye’s enormous fish finger factory. This place has been churning out these diabolical breaded sticks since 1949. Maybe they were developing the prototype fishmonger when George II can scurrying up the cliffs and offered His Maj a taste. Even though he was basically German and lived on pickled cabbage and sausages that look like so much bleached intestine, he would have been justified in having a bit of a rant.

Shuddering I hurried on, past the most easterly church (you can get bored with the most easterly every things) up the final Score – Herring Fishery Score – and back to the car. For all the slightly sour ending – and I understand many people love these fingers of fish – this was a grand walk.

And I still had time to take Dog to the beach for a scamper.

Posted in miscellany, street art, suffolk, walking | 29 Comments

All Political Careers Have To End…

Posted on Nov 18, 2025 by TanGental

…this way


Where once [*] topped the ‘most popular’ scale
He’s now been marked down as a total fail
Sad to relate,
What sealed his fate
Is he’s a male, pale, and very stale…

*insert one of your choosing from Tone, Gordon, David, Boris, Keir…

This limerick is triggered by Esther’s challenge here

Posted in limericks, miscellany, poetry | 16 Comments

Esther, The Furious Mer

Posted on Nov 16, 2025 by TanGental

Esther Mated left the shallows at Southwold beach feeling both apprehensive and furious. Her ‘strawberry wow!’ lipstick was, she knew perfect because she naturally secreted it, but nothing else felt normal. In particular her hair (which as a merperson had evolved to cover any areas of her naked body that might be culturally upsetting to anyone encountering her before she retrieved her clothes) had lost its natural inclination to adhere to those parts and thus now left less to the imagination than was comfortable.

Muttering oaths, (of a fishy kind such as ‘stuttering scallops’ and ‘willy wanging winkles’) she dug into the dunes to find her oyster onesie. As she did so she became self consciously aware of a male dog walker cleaning his over large bifocals while pretending he wasn’t looking in her direction.

She pulled on her boots and stomped – which she didn’t enjoy as her legs hadn’t fully settled in place yet – over to him. He appeared stunned to be approached by this six two auburn haired fury and seemed ready to mutter some sort of excuse when she picked up a handful of shingle and dribbled it over his head.

Esther held her breath and then released it slowly as his anxious expression dissolved into one of benign gormlessness. He picked up the lead he had dropped and headed off towards the pier, now blissfully unaware what he had just seen and with no memory of his encounter beyond a recurring dream he could never ever fully explain to his wife.

Esther reviewed her situation. On the plus side her powers to mind-wipe appeared sound; on the minus side there was her malfunctioning hair. Thinking about her locks brought her anger back to the surface. How dare they – ‘they’ being those irritating apes, like the twannock who had just left – pollute her beautiful sea with their plastics and sewage and incontinent overheating?

The mers had remained perfectly content to share the planet with these disordered bipeds, with their conviction that they were the apex mammal. Of course, the mers were the apex, the most powerful mammals but sometimes quantity can overwhelm quality and these humans had gone too far. Now she had to put up with the tail cringing embarrassment of surfacing just off shore with the sole intent of tempting a couple of surfers to crash into each other, only to be seen by the whole beach population. And photographed. And wolf-whistled. That wasn’t right and even the mini tsunami she conjured up was hardly exacting fair retribution.

She wiped a finger across her still scaly skin as her mouth formed a moue of distaste. Her finger was smeared in what appeared to be the micro residues of a dandruff shampoo. No wonder her natural camouflage had failed.

Moving slowly towards the promenade and its multitude of pastel coloured beach huts, she allowed her mind to form a plan. Something simple but which would teach these muppets a lesson in manners. If they were going to ruin her fun, well, two could play at that game.

A few heads turned to check her out as she strode towards the first cafe, but a judicious drizzle of shingle soon stopped that. An early customer sat contemplating the waves as Esther slide behind the counter, emerging moments later, with neither the barista nor the customer any the wiser. It took her half an hour but by the time all of the cafes and parlours and restaurant and kiosks were open, Esther was heading back to the dunes with a determined grin and seven rolls of tit-tape.

The events of that Thursday in July made the national news and became a legend in the life of the resort. Not a surprise really when every coffee, every ice cream, every sandwich, in fact everything eatable and drinkable served that day tasted of fish, and not in a good way. The only thing that didn’t were the fish and chips and no one who tasted what they had expected to be fish could describe what it was, save that the taste kept recurring for several days after.

Posted in miscellany, short story | 17 Comments