A trip to Wales
Mar. 23rd, 2013 10:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksSo, at 8.30am Friday morning, my mum phoned me up:
As it turned out, the trip was not too bad. One heavy downpour shortly after Swindon, and fairly steady rain once I had crossed the Severn Bridge, but generally trouble-free.
Near the end of the trip I had a worrying time after the Tom Tom sent me along an extremely narrow "unnamed road" for about three miles. "Christ", I said to myself, "I hope this isn't the only way to get to this place. Because, if it is, and it snows, there's no way out".
As it happened, Tom Tom decided this was faster than the route via the main roads (it did cut about four miles from the trip), but I don't think that I shall be going back that way.
The main concern after checking in was the discovery, to my horror, that there was no wireless internet connection. FOr the first time in yonks I had failed to bring a LAN cable, and for the first time in yonks, I needed one.
Still, never mind, I had my back-up 3G dongle.
Oh, there's no mobile phone signal.
And the radio didn't work, either.
The Brecon Beacons, might be pretty, but, in terms of communications, I wouldn't want to be in my car when it broke down.
Finding a mobile phone signal is a bit like Hunt The Thimble. There are pockets of single-bar reception that flit in and out like wisps of smoke in the air. And, by "pockets", I mean, standing absolutely still by the arch outside the main entrance and telling no-one else anywhere near you to please DO NOT MOVE for the duration of the phone call, because by doing so the atmosphere changes and the call gets lost. Most entertaining.
The prospect of a weekend without any contact via phone or interweb did not appeal. But we were saved by finding a public connection in the bar. No phone signal, but I had wifi.
The "Guest Pack" for residents makes for an entertaining read. The owner (he bought the place in 2000) comes across as quite a personality, and he is refreshingly honest (I guess he can afford to be, once he already has your cash -- I would have appreciated a bit more upfrontedness on the website about the poor mobile phone quality in the area).
After the normal bumph about times for breakfast, local places of interest, etc, we get the older and more modern history of the castle.
It was built in 1841 by Captain Powell and was a Gothic ruin before it was completed. He sold it to the Morgan Family in 1875 for £6,000 in 1875. It appears that they regretted this rather quickly, and managed to lose £2,500 on the deal in just three years, selling it on to famous opera singer Adelina Patti in 1878. 'Twas her who made the place famous (as well as extending it from a merely rambling Gothic pile into the huge Money-Pit that it is today -- she spent about £10m in current money extending the place), and she stayed here until her death in 1919. In 1920 the Winter Pavilion was dismantled and removed to Swansea, where it remains. The internal furnishings were auctioned off in 1920. And the place became a Tuberculosis Hospital for 40 years, and then a geriatric hospital for another 20 years. The building gradually sank into chronic disrepair.
The hotel
When the current ownership came in in 2000, they counted "60 buckets, troughs and even old baths collecting rainwater in the visible areas". There were 100 buckets in loft areas also collecting water.
From 2000 to 2011 the owners put in about £3m. At which point I think they realized that they had done enough. There are full details of the huge amount of, often hidden, work done since 2000.
In an update for 2011 and 2012 there's a fascinating tale of the trials of running a place like this. The place seems to rely too heavily on weddings and special events and the owner recognizes that this is essentially volatile. What he was is "larger numbers of people staying just to enjoy the area". Then there ios the conflict between the "events" which tend to be noisy, and the B&B guests, who would obviously prefer a bit of peace and quiet.
The Lounge
The Lounge looking through to the conservatory
The corridor from the entrance leading to bar and then dining room.
The bar -- the hole in the wall on the right used to be a safe.
The dining room
At the end, it's revealed that the castle was put up for sale in 2011, but has now been withdrawn "in part because no-one else really wants to take it on". Business people see that the place needs another £3m spent on it (at least!) and that as a business proposition it just does not add up. I fear this really is a case of location, location, location (not least the poor phone and radio reception!) And anyone with the money to spend on a private house is unlikely to buy a 100-room castle, with annexes, very close to a main road. "Mock-gothic" is not particularly fashionable, and even after spending a fortune on restoration, the running costs would be horrific.
So the owner, who wants to relocate to West Sussex, is, he admits, stuck in a half-and-half commuting land. They run "fright nights", playing on the "haunted" rumours. They play, very strongly on the Adelina Patti connection. And they emphasize the beauty of the area for walks. It is a "dog-friendly" hotel that does not charge extra for pets and which lists several exciting walks (well, exciting for the dogs). If the weather was nicer, and if I could be confident that the GPS on my phone would work, I might even have tried one of them.
Well, it's the wedding today! As befits the Nye way, I think that the whole thing is going to run on a wing and a prayer. Rehearsals? Don't be silly. The only thing I know is guaranteed is that there will be no mention of God. So, there's a relief.
Some pictures:
Groom-to-be Brian shows that he is not fazed by sub-zero temperatures. "Might put my shorts on and go for a paddle in the fountain", he says".
View from the bar to the rear of hotel. Snow on the mountain tops, but none down here in the valley.
View down to the river Tawe from the rear of hotel.
A nice waterfall over the road, behind the horse-riding stables.
The local cat
: "You're not going, are you?". She was referring to my planned drive to the Brecon Beacons for two days, to attend the wedding of Craig's daughter Kate to Brian, at Craig y Nos ("Rock Of The Night") Castle.
"Sure I am"I replied, attempting to sound less worried about the dire weather forecasts than I really was.
As it turned out, the trip was not too bad. One heavy downpour shortly after Swindon, and fairly steady rain once I had crossed the Severn Bridge, but generally trouble-free.
Near the end of the trip I had a worrying time after the Tom Tom sent me along an extremely narrow "unnamed road" for about three miles. "Christ", I said to myself, "I hope this isn't the only way to get to this place. Because, if it is, and it snows, there's no way out".
As it happened, Tom Tom decided this was faster than the route via the main roads (it did cut about four miles from the trip), but I don't think that I shall be going back that way.
The main concern after checking in was the discovery, to my horror, that there was no wireless internet connection. FOr the first time in yonks I had failed to bring a LAN cable, and for the first time in yonks, I needed one.
Still, never mind, I had my back-up 3G dongle.
Oh, there's no mobile phone signal.
And the radio didn't work, either.
The Brecon Beacons, might be pretty, but, in terms of communications, I wouldn't want to be in my car when it broke down.
Finding a mobile phone signal is a bit like Hunt The Thimble. There are pockets of single-bar reception that flit in and out like wisps of smoke in the air. And, by "pockets", I mean, standing absolutely still by the arch outside the main entrance and telling no-one else anywhere near you to please DO NOT MOVE for the duration of the phone call, because by doing so the atmosphere changes and the call gets lost. Most entertaining.
The prospect of a weekend without any contact via phone or interweb did not appeal. But we were saved by finding a public connection in the bar. No phone signal, but I had wifi.
The "Guest Pack" for residents makes for an entertaining read. The owner (he bought the place in 2000) comes across as quite a personality, and he is refreshingly honest (I guess he can afford to be, once he already has your cash -- I would have appreciated a bit more upfrontedness on the website about the poor mobile phone quality in the area).
After the normal bumph about times for breakfast, local places of interest, etc, we get the older and more modern history of the castle.
It was built in 1841 by Captain Powell and was a Gothic ruin before it was completed. He sold it to the Morgan Family in 1875 for £6,000 in 1875. It appears that they regretted this rather quickly, and managed to lose £2,500 on the deal in just three years, selling it on to famous opera singer Adelina Patti in 1878. 'Twas her who made the place famous (as well as extending it from a merely rambling Gothic pile into the huge Money-Pit that it is today -- she spent about £10m in current money extending the place), and she stayed here until her death in 1919. In 1920 the Winter Pavilion was dismantled and removed to Swansea, where it remains. The internal furnishings were auctioned off in 1920. And the place became a Tuberculosis Hospital for 40 years, and then a geriatric hospital for another 20 years. The building gradually sank into chronic disrepair.
The hotel
When the current ownership came in in 2000, they counted "60 buckets, troughs and even old baths collecting rainwater in the visible areas". There were 100 buckets in loft areas also collecting water.
From 2000 to 2011 the owners put in about £3m. At which point I think they realized that they had done enough. There are full details of the huge amount of, often hidden, work done since 2000.
In an update for 2011 and 2012 there's a fascinating tale of the trials of running a place like this. The place seems to rely too heavily on weddings and special events and the owner recognizes that this is essentially volatile. What he was is "larger numbers of people staying just to enjoy the area". Then there ios the conflict between the "events" which tend to be noisy, and the B&B guests, who would obviously prefer a bit of peace and quiet.
The Lounge
The Lounge looking through to the conservatory
The corridor from the entrance leading to bar and then dining room.
The bar -- the hole in the wall on the right used to be a safe.
The dining room
At the end, it's revealed that the castle was put up for sale in 2011, but has now been withdrawn "in part because no-one else really wants to take it on". Business people see that the place needs another £3m spent on it (at least!) and that as a business proposition it just does not add up. I fear this really is a case of location, location, location (not least the poor phone and radio reception!) And anyone with the money to spend on a private house is unlikely to buy a 100-room castle, with annexes, very close to a main road. "Mock-gothic" is not particularly fashionable, and even after spending a fortune on restoration, the running costs would be horrific.
So the owner, who wants to relocate to West Sussex, is, he admits, stuck in a half-and-half commuting land. They run "fright nights", playing on the "haunted" rumours. They play, very strongly on the Adelina Patti connection. And they emphasize the beauty of the area for walks. It is a "dog-friendly" hotel that does not charge extra for pets and which lists several exciting walks (well, exciting for the dogs). If the weather was nicer, and if I could be confident that the GPS on my phone would work, I might even have tried one of them.
Well, it's the wedding today! As befits the Nye way, I think that the whole thing is going to run on a wing and a prayer. Rehearsals? Don't be silly. The only thing I know is guaranteed is that there will be no mention of God. So, there's a relief.
Some pictures:
Groom-to-be Brian shows that he is not fazed by sub-zero temperatures. "Might put my shorts on and go for a paddle in the fountain", he says".
View from the bar to the rear of hotel. Snow on the mountain tops, but none down here in the valley.
View down to the river Tawe from the rear of hotel.
A nice waterfall over the road, behind the horse-riding stables.
The local cat
no subject
Date: 2013-03-26 11:46 am (UTC)It is a joke, right? It's just part of the narrative, right?
After all, you comfortably lived through the 1970s in an analogue world.
I've never owned a SatNav. I look at a map, note down a few road numbers and interchanges and the mere fact of writing it down etches it into my mind.
I can drive from one end of the country to another without recourse to maps. Maybe I'm just good at that and others aren't. Maybe you have become too dependent on technology and need to "come down off it".
Nice cat, btw
Date: 2013-03-26 11:43 pm (UTC)All looks rather lovely.
Now, to drag you back to sordid reality, why do people insist on describing the Cyprus imbroglio thus?
"The brinkmanship that has been on display over the Cyprus financial crisis makes obvious to all but the willfully blind the level of political determination in Brussels to save the euro at all costs."
So says Nigel Farage, a rather likeable chap but no match for Oswald Moseley, I fear.
Thing is, it's a common and utterly stupid trope. This brinkmanship, or whatever you want to call it, demonstrates nothing of the sort.
You want to "save the Euro?" Actually, that would be quite easy. The mechanisms for federalizing the European banking system are well on the way, and Basel III looks like a jolly good way of crippling Eurozone companies in need of a loan whilst ensuring that various broken banks have a regulatory reason to recapitalize.
Cans are being kicked down all over the place. And the German electorate is already on the nail for about a trillion Euros of transfer (I may behind the times on this one, but it's a fair bet that it will be two trillion before this mess is over).
No, Nigel is hopelessly wrong. I believe it was Paul Mason (although it might have been Flanders or even Peston) who pointed out that the Germans, at the moment, are insisting on policy-based measures (if you like, moral hazard) and not on outcome-based measures. To which argument, I recall, you have yourself subscribed.
"At all costs?" Jesus, what a freaking maniac. Throwing thirty billion to half a failed state with a particularly obnoxious Greek sense of entitlement, coupled with the unfortunate result that a bunch of Russian tax-dodgers, and outright mafia thieves can make merry -- well, that's just chump change.
Fairly obviously, there are strange and oblique rules by which the Eurocrats have bound themselves. We can guess at them (and they are mostly Germanic), but we cannot necessarily comprehend them, partly because the awkward squad, this being the Finns in the current case, will tweak them.
But nobody will go to "any lengths."
The frightening thing is the amount of "any lengths" they will allow, nay, insist on other people going through.
This is going to get much, much worse over the next two years.
Re: Nice cat, btw
Date: 2013-03-27 12:02 pm (UTC)No? Well, I will:
Laiki (depositors hit, depositors = Russians)
Anglo-Irish (Irish taxpayers hit, depositors = Germans)
SNS Reaal (European taxpayers hit, depositors = Dutch).
So much for principle.
Re: Nice cat, btw
Date: 2013-03-27 08:53 pm (UTC)Financial shenanigans are rarely about principle, and to my knowledge principle has played very little part since the Fuggers went down. (If not before.) It's always been about who has the power (in that case, Charles V or Philip II, I forget which), and you know what? People keep banging on about the need to "learn the lessons of History" (in Gove's case, this appears to be the birth dates of English monarchs, but whatever), and this is almost always the worst advice you can give anybody ... because they almost always Godwinise their argument on the back of it.
But in the case of huge financial cockups, I think it's fair to say that there are obvious fundamental lessons to be learned. Yet who will learn them, I wonder? Who is the target audience? And what will they do with their enhanced knowledge?
On a more risible level, the underpinning "principle" behind the Euro isn't fiscal and it isn't monetary, as we both know.
Buggered if I know what it actually is, but it keeps the bastards rolling along quite nicely at the moment.
Re: Nice cat, btw
Date: 2013-03-27 09:02 pm (UTC)If the issue here is that a bunch of Russian crooks get to keep their money (which is interesting in itself, because had the Cypriot banks stashed that money away in, say, German pension funds or other AAA assets rather than dodgy Greek bonds at a high apparent return, none of this would have happened and the Russians would be home clear), then the remedy is surely legal.
Clearly, again, the current set-up of the EU does not provide for this legal remedy.
Which is a serious flaw and an error.
And one would (purely theoretically, of course) assume that the solution would be to put a future framework in place to deal with this sort of nonsense. Not to punish both the guilty and the innocent large-scale depositors at the same time on an arbitrary basis, using a stooge Cypriot president as the fall-guy.
So the choice here is stark: "we" (Dijsselbloem and Schauble and everybody behind them) can admit that "we" made a mistake. But now "we" will get our own house in order.
Or alternatively "we" can watch as the central and east Mediterranean catches fire and completely fucks up the whole concept of European Unity.
I think I know which way "we" are going.
It was only €30 billion, for fuck's sake. You could amortize that over ten years and you'd hardly even notice it. What are "bad banks" for?
I stand aggrieved.
Re: Nice cat, btw
Date: 2013-03-27 09:14 pm (UTC)