issue_120

- New Living Traditions -

Bradwan Nationwide Cultural Guide

First published in: City GENT Issue 120. December 2004

BRENTFORD

London has eleven football league clubs. More than half are in the top division. London clubs make up just short of a third of the premiership (over a third if you include Manchester United). London is far and away the richest city in Britain so this is not surprising. It is more surprising that London clubs have rarely been a dominant force in English football, but that is changing. Slowly the satanic spill of Sky money is turning league football into something that follows no rule but cash, and if that means a premiership of eight clubs, with four of them from London, the rest will wither.

This is all a bit grim for us in the North, but spare a thought for the poor sods in the South who follow one of the few of London’s unsuccessful teams; like Brentford. They have only had Leyton Orient to look down on for years, and even that must be a bit galling seeing Leyton is in the poor East End and Brentford in the posh West, although the bit around Griffin Park didn’t look overly prosperous the last time we played here.
There is still a pub on each corner of the ground. As far as we can remember at least two of them had hand pulled Fullers.

The Musical Museum
This museum has one of the finest collections of organ grinder’s instruments in the country, both big and small. It also has player pianos, orchestrions and a Violano-Vituosa, which is a machine from the early 20th Century that plays a violin.

Kew Gardens
Even though winter will probably be well set by the time we play Brentford, The Royal Botanic Gardens, at Kew, are still worth a visit. If it rains The Palm House and The Temperate House (biggest fancy greenhouse in the world) are warm and out of the weather; as are The People & Plants exhibition and The Marianne North Gallery, which contains work by one of the western world's finest painters of plants.
Outside there will be few flowers, but there will be a landscape of grand trees and gaunt shrubs, perhaps still reddened by the last of the year’s mellow fruitfulness.
The Royal Botanic Gardens costs just under £7 for adults and is on the south side of Kew Bridge.

Kew Bridge Steam Museum
This is at the north end of the bridge, which is just a mile east of Griffin Park. It has the biggest steam pumping engine in the world, and a ‘..walk through sewer experience.’
There is a Model Railway Show, including steam miniature railway rides on the 20th November, the day we play Brentford. It seems you can visit this for the normal price, which is £5.20 for adults and £15.95 for a family ticket. It is open from 11.00.
The Key Bridge Steam Museum

Chiswick House
It seems every book on English architecture has to have a picture of this house. If you like fancy, old ‘designer’ houses, you should visit. It is £3.70 for adults. The house is in Chiswick Park, 2 miles east of Griffin Park
Chiswick House

Hogarth’s House
He was a great artist, a savage satirist and had an unmatched eye for the details of the human condition. His house has copies of Gin Lane, The Harlot’s Progress, Marriage a la Mode. It also has the Rake’s Progress. This starts with the Rake getting his hands on his the family fortune, spending it, being made bankrupt, and finishing up as a madman in Bedlam; a story which may seem strangely familiar to City fans.
The house is on the east side of Chiswick Park, and is free in, but make a donation if you do go, it is run by volunteers.

BOURNEMOUTH

City GENT Issue 120, November 2004 Two centuries ago Bournemouth was a sandy heath cut by steep sided ‘chines’, with the Bourne running at the bottom of the biggest. It grew as a fashionable town for people suffering TB and other bronchial problems; with pines being planted to scent the air as an aid to breathing.

The railway came very late to the town, possible because the people who owned Bournemouth didn’t want the unwashed, masses coming here, spending their pennies and driving away the Guinea spending nobs. The nobs soon started holidaying abroad anyway, but Bournemouth managed to survive as a posh place. Like Southport the ‘sea front’ holiday part feels like it’s a different town to the part where the senior social workers and other glories to their class live.

Boscombe

Bournemouth F.C's Dean Court is in Boscombe, a few miles east of the mouth of the Bourne. You can get there by walking along the sea front, passing Britain’s second public nudist beach. The first was at Brighton, on a beach of pebbles and pain. Bournemouth’s is sandy, so if you want to run naked into the sea in the first week of December, you wont have to worry about walking on pebbles, just about them dropping off because of the cold.

Bournemouth seems to have lost three museums: the Rothesay Museum, the Big Four Railway Museum and the Typewriter Museum all seem to have gone to the great museum in the sky; or land fill in the ground. This leaves the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum. We are sorry that there is no longer a typewriter museum in Britain. Invented in 1868, extinct less than a 130 years later, and now almost forgotten. We wonder where the typewriters ended up?