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

This little BB went to Market and this little BB had none, and this little BB went all the way home
Yesterday I had arranged to meet up with a friend who used to work for the uni until he was forced to take voluntary severance (in fact he had started out as my assistant back in the days when I had an assistant). As Southampton's so-called 'Christmas Market' was open, we arranged to meet there. They've got much better lights this year than previously and they sell over-priced stuff in wooden sheds, which apparently they reckon are 'chalets'. The highlight is the Flying , where a full-size sleigh containing passes over the market at 5pm and 7pm. Here's a photo I took in a previous year (when they had inferior lights): http://h2g2.com/h2g2/blobs/post_Bluebottle_Festive_Photo_Father_Christmas.jpg

It also boasts 'a Bavarian musician with traditional Christmas music' – and yesterday he was playing those good-old traditional Christmas songs like 'Summertime Blues' and 'Shake, Rattle and Roll'… If you want a Christmas market in Hampshire, you're better off going to Winchester (but avoid weekends when it is heaving).

Most of the market is dominated by the two bars where they sell steins of German beer as well as bratwurst . This year they had a double-decker bar with an upstairs seating area above the portaloos, which we walked up to for the novelty value. It felt very wobbly upstairs and the floor and table were constantly vibrating and shaking, so it was just like being back at work (they're building a multi-million marine simulator suite underneath my office which gets VERY NOISY with the banging and drilling).

I really enjoyed the catch up, with the evening only marked by the bar's refusal to serve me. They thought I looked under 18! They had signs up saying they asked for ID for people who look under 25 and so I was asked for ID and didn't have any 'cos no-one's asked me for ID in over a decade. I didn't look under 18 18 years ago.

When I got home my wife said I should take it as a compliment, but it isn't.

<BB<

Impressive photo

That is impressive in a different way that you got ID'd... Did you have to leave, or did they allow you to sit in the bar as long as you didn't drink any or ?

I hope your friend is doing well now after having been forced to voluntarily be redundant... Glad you had a good catch up

The flying is good fun – particularly after zooming forward overhead, he slowly reverses back to where he started. They should get Rudolf's red nose to flash while there's a reversing beeping noise…

The right bar steward who asked me for ID did so after I'd asked for a hot chocolate – I wasn't even drinking alcohol at the time. And that was after I'd bought drinks tokens too (you have to buy drinks tokens before you can buy a drink from the bar, just so that in order to spend £3 on a drink you have already spent £5 on tokens). But they let me sit in the bar as I bought a , which this year came adequately breaded.

My mate has just had his fixed term contract doing IT for the Police extended, so that's good news that he won't be unemployed before Christmas. But yes we had a good catch up.

<BB<

That Christmas market sounds, er, tacky.

about getting carded.

I, too, want that Santa sleigh to have backup noises...and proximity detectors....

The Christmas market is definitely unbelievably tacky. Southampton is a city that people pass through. It is one of the largest cruise ports on , but it is somewhere people go from and to – thousands of, say, US tourists who get off the ship and straight on the train to London or Bath or somewhere nice. So the council wants to get the tourists to stop and stay in Southampton long enough to spend some money. Most of the council's strategy does seem to be focussed on ensuring that the number of restaurants in the city outnumbers the number of people, but the tacky market in winter is another one of their 'get-rich-quick' schemes.

If you did want to spend time in Southampton then the art gallery has one of the finest collections in the country outside London and is free, the Sea City Museum is rather good and the Solent Sky Hall of Aviation has a great collection of aircraft, but is in an out-of-the-way location without parking and is sadly neglected, underfunded and looking run down.

Alternatively you could spend time on the Isle of Wight…

<BB<

I hear you.

That happens here, too. When I was growing up, the Commonwealth of Kentucky delayed finishing their interstate highway for as long as humanly possible. Personally, I didn't mind: the landscape in Kentucky is much better appreciated from a two-lane than an interstate. But they were poor, and needed the money, so they slowed down the traffic.

Billboards advertising local sights, souvenir shops with carvings of bears outside and quilts in the window, theme motels where all the units were shaped like teacups, mushroom houses, wigwams, etc.... Oh, and the Lexington, Kentucky water tower, that looked like a giant Dixie Cup because making disposable paper cups was the town's main industry.

The proliferation of restaurants, though, sounds interesting - have you thought of writing a series of reviews for the Post?

Good grief! You don't think someone like me can afford to eat in the restaurants!?!?

<BB<

Ah. Expensive restaurants....

I was thinking more of hotdog places.

Sorry, I should have been clearer. They sell in the Christmas market, but the thousands of restaurants are expensive.

<BB<

What a shame we don't have a restaurant review budget at h2g2.

"They should get Rudolf's red nose to flash while there's a reversing beeping noise…"

Yes indeed!

That is strange about being ID'd for hot chocolate... It was similar for me once when I was admittedly under 25 but didn't think to bring photo ID because I was only planning on drinking orange juice with some uni friends. The bar steward there chucked us all out We decided we wouldn't want to drink in his bar anyway...

That is good news for your friend - shame about the temporary contract but hopefully it continues to be extended

The proliferation of restaurants is more worrying than interesting, I think - it's the same in Liverpool, that there was a lovely area with boutique shops selling all kinds of unusual items but then the rent went up and the boutiques couldn't afford it so they moved out and chains of restaurants moved in - if you've been to one, you've been to them all

Yes, that's pretty much it here too – they are brand new identically-sized, identical layout restaurants that look like industrial units inside. The Cultural Quarter was advertised as being an area that would be full of boutiques and small art galleries and arty shops. Instead there's a Costa Coffee, Nandoos, Tapas, Gourmet , & Pie Barn and a dozen restaurants instead. See:
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/feb/22/studio-144-southampton-new-arts-venue
(Incidentally, if you look at the top picture, between the gurt big modern monstrosities in the foreground, just behind the trees in the background you can see the top of my building. I'll wave!)

Fortunately the plans the council had put forward of selling off the art collection once again was rejected:
http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/9911865.City__should_sell_art_left_in_vaults_/
They really don't get the idea that though a small number of items are on display at any one time, the exhibits frequently change and get loaned to other collections in exchange for other exhibits to increase the variety, so that whenever you go to the gallery you see something different, so people like me keep popping in every now and then over a period of years and decades. In their view they think 'there's only space for 300 works of art therefore we can get rid of all but 300 works of art'.

But the people who pass through Southampton are POSH in the real Port Out, Starboard Home First Cabin and Captain's Table sense. On their way to their Round the cruise on board the Queen Mary II they're not going to stop for a . I'm not personally convinced they're going to gluttonously pop into at least 50 over-priced restaurants each either, but the council believes differently. Southampton does get the red-trousered in during Boat Show week, but not to the extent of Cowes.

<BB<

*waves to <BB<* - that is a good summary in the article...

I didn't know about the John Hansard Gallery, although I was in the area looking for Zebras the other year, so I will put that on the list of interesting things to do