The Hooverville Writers' Hexagon: The Hooverville Hexagon: More Exotic Locales

(Not so) faraway places, for some.

Nature Shot of the Day

by Galaxy Beb

A blast from the past (2021): this bee photobombed GB's butterfly shot. It liked buddleia, too.

York

by Bluebottle

York is England's historic second city, and one filled to the brim with historic and fascinating places to visit and beautiful buildings, such as the incomparable York Minster. It has long been a tourist destination, and deservedly so, with Clifford's Tower, York Castle Museum and Jorvik well placed to tell York's story, as is the Yorkshire Museum, Chocolate Museum and the world's greatest museum about trains, the National Railway Museum. Much of the city centre is pleasingly pedestrianised and with cafés and tea shops. If you like cheesy history then you can enjoy York's story told at the York Dungeon or through one of the many walking tours, including a Ghost tour, or their bus-based and boat-based equivalents if you wish to sit back and relax. There really is something for everyone wishing to enjoy York.

Or at least, that's how it was. Last month my father-in-law said he would like to visit the National Railway Museum and see the Rocket and Mallard &c, and so we went to York for the day for the first time since Covid. But worryingly, the tourist focus in York has shifted somewhat, so that increasingly much of York isn't actually about York any more.

First, and this isn't a new phenomenon, inexplicably shops that sell tourist tat continue to sell

merchandise about a completely different location at the opposite end of the country. Yes, in York there is a plethora of shops that sell postcards, tea towels and t-shirts bedecked with double-decker buses, post boxes and phone boxes proudly proclaiming 'I am in London' when the truth is you're not. Not even close. You're the opposite end of the country. Why not buy a postcard or something else about York, which, you know, is the city you are actually in? It's a lovely city that I have long liked, with a style and character of its own.

After leaving the railway museum and going into the city centre looking for a café, my family and I discovered that they were having a 'Jane Austen Day'.

York, old city, half-timbered buildings.

Jane Austen never went to York. York certainly existed in the Georgian era, but it would have been a Georgian York, not Georgian Bath or Georgian Alton. We carried on to the Shambles, which is a famous narrow street, where I was horrified to discover there were now three separate Harry Potter shops. Three. And the city was also advertising 'Harry Potter Tours' of York. Can you name a city that didn't inspire Harry Potter and that JK Rowling apparently never visited? Yes, York. Where didn't they film Harry Potter? York. If you're in York and want to do a Harry Potter tour, why not go to Alnwick Castle, which is reasonably close by and where they filmed the first two films as it stood in for Hogwarts? That makes sense. A Harry Potter tour of places with no connection to Harry Potter, but presumably were chosen because they fit the vibe (or possibly it is a tour going to all the Harry Potter shops that have sprung up) doesn't make sense.

After the hustle and bustle of the Shambles we headed to the peace and tranquility of the beautiful grounds of York Minster. Outside which there was a statue on a bench of Paddington Bear, because of course there was. You can't even find sanctuary on consecrated ground. Again, Paddington has no actual connection to York. The books aren't set there and the films weren't made there. Its reason for being is purely that York attracts tourists and tourists to the UK have no interest whatsoever in York's genuine history, or even the local history-turned entertainment as found in Ghost Walks and the Dungeon. No, what they expect is Jane Austen, Paddington Bear, Harry Potter and to buy a postcard saying they were in London.

Meerkat Huddle

by FWR

Does anybody else want to be in the middle of that? Or is it just me?