Not why I am there or why I am walking along it, but why aren't there more people around?
It seems uncertain how far back this street goes but it could be 13th century. Most of the existing buildings, however, are Tudor. Many of the original buildings were destroyed by a massive fire in 1507 which destroyed over 700 houses in Norwich. The Britons Arms, until recently a coffee shop, is much older and was the only building to survive the fire.
The street is still cobbled and could be one of the great historic streets in the country. There's only one problem with that. Very few people from outside Norfolk seem to know that it exists or even visit it.
Originally it was a straight street but was re-aligned to curve in the 15th century to allow for the construction of St Andrew's and Blackfriars Halls. Today there are churches at each end of Elm Hill - St Peter, Hungate, and St Simon and St Jude.
For centuries Elm Hill was an important manufacturing area in Norwich with its easy access to the river. But in the 19th century, with the decline of the weaving industry, it lost its importance and degenerated into a slum area. By the 1920s it was neglected and suffering decay. Indeed it was an area of poverty and squalor.
There were moves to demolish the street - something that must have been unthinkable to historians. Thankfully the Norwich Society stepped in with a detailed survey and renovation work began in 1927. Norwich Corporation purchased some of the properties, slums were demolished and the street was returned to its former glories. Today most of the buildings are owned by Norwich City Council.
Thank goodness common sense prevailed, giving us what has become largely a hidden gem in the history not only of Norwich but the country as a whole. For anyone thinking of visiting Norwich I would urge them to have a wander along this street (it only takes a few minutes) and bask in the glory of its massive history that saw it go from an important trading area to a slum and then fought back.
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There are things in life that I love that I really shouldn't. The Eurovision Song Contest is one of them. As mentioned yesterday it is an important part of Spring.
It pretty much goes back as long as I do. The first contest was in 1956 when Switzerland won with a song entitled "Refrain" which was sung in French. Interestingly the first 11 winners were in a foreign language (foreign that is to us). It wasn't until Sandie Shaw won for the UK with Puppet on a String in 1967 that a song sung in English came top of the pile.
The number of votes gained by the first winners was not made public but the following year just 31 votes won the contest. Contrast that with the 2015 winner which returned 758 points.
Over the years, the contest has changed from a song event into a kitsch, colourful, totally over the top competition that at least takes us away from our humdrum existence for one evening.
As for the UK entries. Well we have won it five times but not for many years. Only five of the entries have gone to the top of the UK pop charts. Our entries started in 1957 with "All" performed by Patricia Bredin. This quasi-operatic ballad came seventh out of just 10 entries. You can view it on You Tube just to see how awful it was. It reminds me of another song but I can't recall which. There were no allegations that year of political or rigged voting - we just accepted that the song came seventh because it was dull. Here is the link to that performance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo0eJlq8J2Y
Apparently Patricia Bredin is still alive at the age of 85. I looked her up on Wikipedia and couldn't help but laugh over one sentence which is sad and I shouldn't find it amusing but it was difficult not to laugh at this:
"On her second marriage, she married the Canadian businessman Charles MacCulloch and became Patricia Bredin-McCulloch, but he died on their honeymoon and she built up a herd of cows on their estate."
Sometimes when the UK entry comes on I have to shout at the TV screens. You see there seems to be some suggestion that there is a conspiracy to stop the UK winning, political voting for near neighbours and ignoring the good old UK.
There may be some truth in the political theory but it's certainly not the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. This is borne out by the fact that the best song often wins. Just look at the recent history of the competition where Rise Like a Phoenix won, Fairy Tale won and both of them are streets ahead of any UK entry.
We seem to want to puff out our chests in indignation. "It's not fair, it's not fair. There's no way we can ever win," we holler. Now here's a little secret. The reason we don't win is due to the utter c--p that we enter year after year after year.
Our entries come in the bottom three not because of political voting but because they are dreadful songs. Every year I listen to the UK entry with new hope. Every year I have it dashed as it's the same old same old. Take our entry this year "Embers" by James Newman. I firmly predict this will be in the bottom five.
Mind you they will have to go some to emulate the officially worst UK entry - Cry Baby by Jemini. This pile of dross failed to get a single vote and is truly awful. I sometimes think that the UK entries are so bad so that we can all have a good whinge about the EU, politics. At times they seem to be picked to take the mickey. Cry Baby also holds the record for the first English language song not to score a point. Jemini was a duo from Liverpool consisting of Chris Cromby and Gemma Abbey. They split up after the Eurovision debacle but re-united on a number of occasions. Things went anything but smoothly for them as Abbey was arrested in 2016 for security fraud and given a suspended prison sentence.
It has never ceased to amaze me that the country that brought rock and pop music to the world (along with America of course) should be unable to produce a song capable of winning Eurovision or at least getting into the top half of the leaderboard.
If you want to hear how lame our entries are just listen to Flying the Flag by Scooch, One Step Further by Bardo or (possibly the worst) Teenage Life by Daz Sampson which featured a load of screeching kids followed by the now traditional overdone bass beat and a second-rate rap.
Yes every year we trot out the same old dross and then complain that our lowly position is due to any reason other than the rubbish we are entering.
As for my favourite Eurovision song of all time - Well that has to be Nocturne which won for Secret Garden and Norway in 1995. This was a quasi-classical piece of music that I just love because it oozes class - class that the UK no longer has. It was a tad controversial though as it only included 24 words to stop it being an instrumental and of course we don't have the Eurovision instrumental contest.
Secret Garden are still one of my favourite groups/duos. Their music has huge Celtic influences, probably because one half of Secret Garden - Fionnuala Sherry - is Irish. The other half is Norwegian Rolf Lovland. Remember Nocturne, it's always a good answer on quiz shows as it seems to be a little remembered winner. Ironically it's not for Nocturne that the duo are remembered but for one of their other compositions "You Raise Me Up" which has been covered by so many artists.
One final mention for a song that came nowhere that I love. This was entitled Sisters which was the 2019 entry for Germany. It's a modern but well constructed song without that bloody booming bass. It came nowhere!
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Hope you enjoy today's gallery of photographs taken during a walk along the river from Cringleford to the University of East Anglia Broad.