Saturday is Nottingham

Speaking to colleagues over the last week, I have learned that, during half-term, one was off to the Red Sea, one was going to Iceland (the country, not the shop), one was on a mini-break to New York... you get the idea. My performance management assessor was telling me about his recent holiday to Cuba. The Chappell family are bathing in the temperate waters of some estuary in Australia and the Streets are off to Devon, where it will probably rain, but at least it's touristy.

I am doing the Tour of Urban Population Centres of England, to which the soundtrack is probably National Express by The Divine Comedy. Southampton, Northampton, Nottingham, Derby, Lincoln, Birmingham, Reading and back to Southampton - between Friday and Tuesday I shall have passed through all of them.

Saturday is Nottingham.

I went on the tram for the first time:



Much better than queueing for ages to drive into the Victoria or Broadmarsh Centres, paying the best part of a tenner to park and then finding out that someone in their yellow Smartcar opened their door and knocked your wing mirror off.

The tram even has a conductor who chats jovially and sells you your ticket. And it has one of those "elevator voices" which tells you when you are stopping, saying helpful, calming things like "The Next stop is High School, for the Arboretum" and "The next stop is Nottingham Trent University, not really a proper University, it used to be Trent Poly."

Anyway, it drops you off in Slab Square (or Old Market Square as it's more properly known), which used to look like this:



...at the moment looks like this:



...and in a few months time, apparently, will look like this:







...but don't hold your breath, because it's being done by the same people who did the Diana (comma, reverential pause...) Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain Ring of Water Thing in Hyde Park which broke down and had to be closed.

But some things never change, and it's nice to know that people still sit around, eat their sandwiches and shout at their children near the Victoria Centre Clock. People stand around and text near it now too.



Whatever they are doing, they all ignore it when it goes off - all birds-a-flapping, frogs-a-jumping, squirrels-a-squirrelling and harpsicord music-a-playing. It's nice to know that some things don't change - people ignored it 20 years ago too. After all the effort Rowland Emett probably put into designing and making it, it seems a shame. But as he's been dead since 1991, I doubt he minds...