h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've been studying this place for 4 months. The results of my studies are as follows:

*norwich prides itself of being a quiet little town. it also prides itself on being a city. obviously these two things don't contradict each other. ketchup is not ketchup.

*norwich, priding itself on being a quiet little town, means it's dull.

*norwich may very well be in the middle of nowhere. it's at least 2 hours away from anything interesting, and the uninteresting things are less interesting than norwich.

*any and all fashion comes directly from london. this is, of course true to most of england, i suspect. the problem being, it's norwich, which means there's no quick and/or cheap route to london, and so there's a filter for what actually gets here.

*nothing really makes it to norwich from london. fashion, as far as i can tell, is about 2-3 years behind. except new rock boots, which are spreading through the countryside like an epidemic. i'm waiting for new rocks to be seen on the cattle just outside of town.

*what to do in norwich at night besides sleep: there's a number of very bad clubs. there's also multitudes of very bad pubs, and a handful of decent ones. but, of course, pubs close at 11pm.

*alternative music in norwich means Korn, Slipknot, and Machinehead. this is also goth and industrial music. in fact, this is the general "other" category. for example, you can go to a trendy club, and listen to an hour or two (depending on if you left directly from the pub, or you actually left early and arrived at the club before 10pm) of trance (always the same songs, always rejects from london clubs, always heard on bbc radio), 3 hours of brittney spears, christina aguilera, backstreet boys, etc., and 1 hour of random oldies (van morrison, misc. female soul tracks ("rescue me", "respect" and the like), 50s bebob smushed next to 80s europop). or you can go to one of the 3 alternative nights, where you'll hear several hours of metal.

*like the rest of england, everyone here lives with a mobile phone permanently affixed to their ear.

*very, very few people at the university enjoy what they're studying. even less plan on getting jobs in that field.

*i don't dislike norwich. i just don't actively like it. still, it's better than Redlands, California.

In the defence of Norwich clubs they are A LOT better than they used to be, which is to say, better run and therefore generally far less fun. In the old days, all the weirdos would come streaming into these places after the pubs shut (there are a lot of VERY good pubs in Norwich, but twice as many horrible ones) At least you would meet some interesting people and some funny things would happen in these badly run pits. Nowadays, all the Kevs and Sharons come busing in from the villages and are herded, cattle like, into vast modern clubs where they queue for hours for overpriced lager. This leaves the rest of us free to enjoy our night out in peace somewhere where you can get something other than bottled lager to get inebriated on!

That is very true, you wouldn't get me into one of the new clubs in Norwich if you paid me (and since I have to pay them, theres no chance!)

The are many excellent pubs in Norwich, yes there is dross (but I've been in bad pubs in more cities than Norwich), and the beer festival in Norwich is wonderful! A week sampling hundreds of different beers

First of all: "Norrich"??

Secondly, most of the stuff written in the twenty or so posts here is UTTER UTTER DROSS.

I now live in London, but I was brought up in Norwich and I still regularly visit. I'm loving living in the big city with the bright lights, but nevertheless having read the majority of the posts on here I feel compelled to leap to the defence of my hometown.

Criticisms that I accept (I used to live there. There are many!): the "quaint" feel does grate after a while, the nightlife still isn't great, the majority of Norfuckians are inbred chavscum and some areas of town are just plain dull (eg ALL of north Norwich, most of the suburbs etc.).

Now for the positives: crap pubs?? CRAP PUBS??!! YOU'RE GOING TO THE WRONG ONES. Since moving to London one thing I miss is the proliferation of decent boozers back at home - The Gardenhouse, the Unthank, the Rose, the Mad Moose, the Walnut Tree Shades, the Rushcutters, The Rivergarden.... I could go on. And these are just the ones IN NORWICH. Norfolk is chock full of fantastic pubs - The Lifeboat (Thornham), The Saracen's Head (north of Ickeringham), the Hoste (Burnham)....

Norwich may be small, but for it's size it's got plenty of facilities. because of it's large catchment area, the shopping (if that's your thing) is as good as any large city in the UK. I lived for three years in Birmingham and it's not far behind in terms of what there is (although the New Bullring has improved things). One must bare in mind Norwich has a tenth of the population. Same goes with things like Cinemas/swimming pools/that kinda thing. There's nothing that Norwich "doesn't have".

Nightlife - Liquid, Time, Mercy (not been).... doesn't look good, does it?? And frankly it's not (unless you wear Bake Furberry), but there ARE some rubies in the dust - Ha!Ha!'s is alright, as is Po Na Na's and (crap name, good bar) Orgasmic. On Riverside, Norwegian Blue is acceptable. But I go back to Birmingham - what's there either?? If you want to go out later, try the nights at the Waterfront. They always used to be halfway decent and OCCASIONALLY some good acts play Po Na Nas.

"Nothing to see or do within a two hour radius" I believe was the choice quote - I'm utterly speechless!! The Broads are beautiful, the north Norfolk coast is stunning, the city is lovely, the river, the Cathedral grounds, the Castle, one of the best preserved medieval cities in the country (Elm Hill, wadda wadda) and the COUNTRYSIDE in Norfolk is lush.... I miss it!!

Fashion - Phillipe Brown/Upper Goat Lane in general isn't SO bad, is it?? Dog/Cat/Monkeyfish is pretty good too. It's not Bond Street, but it's actually a darn sight better than most other similar sized cities.

Places to eat - Bar Tapas is pretty good, Adlards has a Michelin star (still??), plenty of pubs that serve decent food (Unthank Arms, the Ram, Rushcutters, River Garden), the Pizza Express is a particularly good one for the chain. However, the lack of ANY significant non-caucasian ethnic community does make it devoid of any decent Indian/Thai/east-european etc. restaurants. Andersons (top of St Giles) used to be a cracking Danish restaurant, but it's now been changed into a "Mediterranean" gaff - far less exciting. Captain America's does a decent burger, Togo's does pretty good sarnies for lunch. Other than this it's chains (Caffe Uno's rubbsih - avoid, Zilli's accross tombland is far superior, Ha!Ha!'s next door's not too bad either).

In short: Norwich - It's Not That Bad Really. So good, I left!



And I never even got round to mentioning the fact it has the best football team in the world ever.

Oh and Raven, you imply there's nothing for a Goth to do in Norwich??

Serves you right.

The other thing Norwich doesn't seem to have is anywhere to bloody live.

So whatever happened to Ritzy's, then? (cheap beer on a monday and a place to go after the pubs closed)

When I was down there again a few weeks ago, the Gog - Gogmagog statues still flanked the dorway, like slightly more intelligent bouncers, but the inside was being gutted for "redevelopment" (flats for yuppie Onanists). And the Louis Marchesi was no more!!!

Is the even cheesier Rick's Place on Anglia Square still there? Never thought to look.

Also agree on the pub thing - I fondly remember the city centre - Fifer's Lane pub crawl.