The Land Of The Free

We arrived in town on July 4 which meant huge crowds at Pike Street Market but lots of downtown shops closed for the celebrations. That sealed state carried over into Sunday so Seattle has been a slightly surreal city experience until today when all seems to be up and running again. Just in time - we move on tomorrow.

Home of Starbucks, Home of Microsoft, home of, well you get the picture, Seattle likes to think of itself as hip and thrusting. I think it's just about right in its self-estimation, though there are rather more down-and-outs on the sidewalks than a city should feel comfortable about.

You should see the queues to enter the original Starbucks down at Pike Street. We went elsewhere, not from any right-on animus against the coffee moguls but because there are other treats to be had - on the Starbucks thing I do have to say that I think Margaret Hodge (the cheerleader for the Starbucks lynch mob) not only looks a bit like Polly Toynbee (are they ever seen together?) but talks through much the same orifice.

As appearing on a teeshirt near you

So should you be in town don't miss the Pike Street Pub and Brewery - Where everybody knows your name . Now you can if you wish read the predictably faint praise reviews from beer nerds or you can take this experienced drinker's word for it - the place is fun. It is also commercial (I've bought the teeshirt) but, hell they're entitled to make a living. They also serve passable wine by the glass should you want to take the darling heart for a tipple and the food is on the money, especially the salmon sandwich. Actually 'sandwich' is a misnomer, it's more of a slab of good fresh fish in a bun. With fries of course.

In a bizarre game of football last night USA beat Japan 5-2 in the final of the FIFA Women's World Cup. Sharon and I watched this whilst gorging on oysters and garlic fries in the J & M Bar in Pioneer Square - Seattle's oldest bar - I was drinking the local Mac and Jack which carries a kick. Service absolutely top drawer. That overreaching toss bag Sepp Blatter did not lower the tone by daring to turn up. Which was nice.

A long way up but there is
 a very fast elevator

Today we walked down to the Space Needle at the vibrant Seattle Center (that's how they spell it and it is their city after all) but did not go up because we had already taken in the much higher and much less hyped tallest building in town (indeed loftiest publicly accessible observatory on the West coast) the Columbia Center. So vertiginous that not only is there a Starbucks on the ground floor but another one for good measure at the half-way point on the fortieth floor.

Finally there has to a word for the Pike Street Market - all sorts from tat to tasteful and fish stalls the match of anything anywhere. If you were massively disciplined you could just cruise the crowded halls and sate yourself on the free samples. But if you are human you will crack and buy something - anyone for Aged Raspberry Balsamic Vinegar?

By the way and apropos of nothing at all, Brad Freidel walked into the Vancouver Starbucks from which I blogged at the weekend. In town for the women's final perhaps?

This is BFP signing off on behalf of The Overgraduate from the Polar Bar at the Arctic Explorer's Club in Seattle, where he has just finished the first bottle of a very presentable Washington State sauvignon blanc. God Bless America.

More Dining

Tucked just off the main drag of Vancouver's Gastown we (or more accurately Sharon) found another little gem for an early dinner (earliness explained below) - see Alporto

A nice prosecco was taken. We both settled on a pizza. These were delayed because the perfectionist chef was not satisfied with the first ones out of the oven. We were kept informed of progress and given complimentary starters to keep us occupied - a subtly spiced gazpacho. At the end of the meal we also got free, but wholly unneeded, liqueurs to compensate for what had been only a slight interruption. The pizzas were properly Italian in type and on the correct side of superb. Change from $100 (before the richly deserved tip). A great discovery - 7.5/10.

We dined early because we have had a pre-dawn start today and this missive therefore comes to you from the Amtrak Cascades train from Vancouver to Seattle. We've just crossed the border and they haven't got me yet. The cinnamon rolls from the buffet car are sodding enormous and reasonably priced. It's a beautiful day and the views are stunning. Sorry in a way to have left Vancouver but there are new discoveries awaiting us.

Last but not unimportantly I have bought myself a Vancouver souvenir teeshirt to augment my collection of snappy casual gear. Girls go crazy for a sharp dressed man.

Fine Art, Food And Drink

It would be difficult to overpraise Vancouver, surely one of the most liveable cities in the world.

Yesterday started with a visit to the Vancouver Art Gallery, a grand but apparently inadequate space - they are at the start of a project to move to new premises. Exhibits of varying quality but the star turn undoubtedly Of Heaven and Earth: Five Hundred Years of Italian Art, a visiting show of paintings from the Glasgow Municipal Galleries' Mclellan Collection. To cap the experience they gave me student discount.

Mucky Italian picture

We exited the gallery to midday heat and had what I (after due deliberation) have to say was the best street food I have ever eaten. Stand up and take a bow Mr Shawarma halal chicken purveyor of Robson Square. Nothing short of superb.

Devour some art and then some chicken

Onward thereafter (after detour due to the map being upside down) to Gastown, the oldest part of town where we sat outside at the Chill Winston and enjoyed just enough (never too much, Heaven forfend) sauvignon blanc and predictably charming Canadian service.

Mellow out man

All in all a great day but journalistic ethics do mean that I have to disclose that it was Sharon's fault that we got lost. Not perfect after all.

Today has dawned sunny and we will do some more urban wandering before we move on to Seattle tomorrow

Turning Left And Arriving

Well actually a minor disappointment - the layout of the plane was such that we turned right. But thereafter all was well, service spot on and usual comforts. The food (lobster to start, responsibly sourced haddock to follow and a nice cheese board to finish) was presentable and a wide choice of wines, most of which I tried. Didn't watch much on the screen but rather managed to snooze whilst listening to Radio 4 programming. Tres satisfactoire as some Canadians are wont to say.

Third floor corner suite ours for now

We were arriving in Vancouver on Canada Day which meant an interesting taxi ride through the downtown thronged streets - we had a diminutive driver in a responsibly sourced Prius (Sunshine Cab S31) who must have broken some sort of record for lane changing as he negotiated us to the Fairmont. Vancouver is an exceptionally civilised city as betokened by the fixed fare from airport to centre - absolute bargain at $31.

Multi grain bagel for breakfast. Weather fine. All well in the world.

Turning Left

It's holiday time and we're doing it upmarket. Virgin Train business class to Euston, followed by taxi to Paddington and then the very satisfactory Heathrow Express (Business First natch) to the airport. Now reporting to you from the BA South Lounge in Terminal 5. A bit busy if truth be told but the wine and food are all free and gratis so I'm getting stuck in before we head for Vancouver. An oddity is that the wine list seems to eschew the New World. I'm grinning and bearing it in my new spirit of entente cordiale.

Meanwhile the world outside bakes in 35 degree heat and I've spent barely any time away from air conditioning. Life's been good to me so far. More to follow.

Little Things Please ...

One of the things that please this little mind is to seek comedy in the television listings. I don't mean tracking down classic comedy programmes, no no no, what I do is to read across the schedules for amusing juxtapositions. Of which there was a beauty on Wednesday on E4: Great Canal Journeys … World's Largest Penis. The former being a cruise along the Rochdale Canal with Prunella Scales and Timothy West, the latter, despite its rich promise, transpiring not to be about Piers Morgan.

Returning To An Earlier Tune

Guizot
1787-1874

There ain't half been some clever bastards. On which topic I've come across the doings of Francois Guizot. He was a leading historian with more than a passing interest in English history, a prolific and influential translator of Shakespeare into his native French and, in-between times, he found he had the energy to serve France as Prime Minister. He was a constitutional monarchist and I've happened upon his doings in the context of my research into our own favourite constitutional monarchist, Walter Bagehot. Because, dear reader, it was as a nominal response to Guizot's 1852 republication of his Shakespeare et Son Temps that Bagehot wrote his less voluminous (but nevertheless the jumping-off point for OG's postgraduate thesis) Shakespeare - the Individual. Walter, as he could, rather damned M. Guizot with faint praise, comparing him to Pitt as someone incapable of learning by experience. Walter's point was that Shakespeare had an 'experiencing nature'. I'm afraid that by extension Walter rather immodestly saw himself in this way.

Guizot was briefly exiled in London but it was in Bagehot's formative journalistic years so it is unlikely they met, which is a pity - I can imagine Guizot insisting on speaking flawless English and Bagehot equally adamantly sticking to French. I reiterate - there ain't half been some clever bastards.