Comments on: Travel #8: Salisbury Part II – the second, longer, part about that lady who asked me to call her a dirty cunt.

By: Lee

Lee — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 15:30:12 +0000

meh, ofc I mean #7 not #6!
And “resounding response”.

By: Lee

Lee — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 15:19:40 +0000

Brilliant stuff Phil, love it – will be tuning back in to catch up with your travel experiences.

To give you some more random history, that you may have stumbled across, that pub “The Haunch of Venison” in your photo in #6… the story goes, among many other stories about it, that this is where Churchill and Roosevelt discussed the plans for D-Day.

Salisbury’s is home, its the very middle of the middle of England. Middle class, middle England. At our last general election (when we vote for the government), I remember one of the many statistics wheeled out was that Salisbury was the highest net spend per capita at Tesco’s. Tesco is the big player in supermarkets in the UK… think Walmart. And it was something bizarre like 70% of all money spent in retail in Salisbury went into a Tesco’s till. Now, as any self-respecting Salisbury resident will tell you… we have 2 supermarkets (there are others, but they don’t really count)…. we have Tesco and Waitrose.

Waitrose, in the UK, is the aspirational supermarket, very expensive, when you walk in its all flat screen tvs, soft furnishings, freshly baked bread; staffed by “partners” rather than employees. Not sure if there is a US alternative. I can imagine that Waitrose is a VERY British place… in your time in Salisbury, you may have even seen it or heard it mentioned.

How do these relate? Well, you ask ANYONE in Salisbury where they do their shopping and the resounding will ALWAYS be Waitrose. So, who’s spending all that money in Tesco’s??? This is Salisbury. Love it.

By: Clara Irving-Mayes

Clara Irving-Mayes — Thu, 01 Jan 2015 11:50:50 +0000

I definitely need to know his thoughts on The Chapel

By: Clara Irving-Mayes

Clara Irving-Mayes — Thu, 01 Jan 2015 11:47:17 +0000

I miss Smallsbury so much right now. Not that I really ever saw this side of it! Alderbury is.. Okay, I can’t lie, it’s a bit rubbish, but in lived there for 15 years and it’s my baby.

By: Erika

Erika — Thu, 01 Jan 2015 10:55:40 +0000

Great read, I went right back to no. 1. Phil, you follow in the footsteps of the great Bill Bryson. May you visit these small islands often and continue to enjoy ‘Travelling’. X

By: Ian Lawes

Ian Lawes — Thu, 01 Jan 2015 09:08:57 +0000

Great read …. if you think “Smallsbury” is bad you want to try coming from “Shamesbury!” I expect you passed through it on your way to Stonehenge!

By: Simon

Simon — Wed, 31 Dec 2014 14:33:41 +0000

Tips for visiting Stonehenge:

1) Try to arrive before 10am, because that’s before all the coachloads of bucket listers get there.

2) Keep an eye out for Siobhan, the Stonehenge shaman who visits often, and is usually either in the exhibition or at the monument. You’ll recognise her easily, she carries a goat-headed staff called Capricorn.

3) Talk to the stewards who look after the place on a daily basis – there’ll be a couple of them on the path by the monument. Some of them are quite, quite mad.

4) Expect it to be cold, muddy and with a fierce wind.

5) Best photos are taken from the southeast side of the monument, looking up-slope.

6) Don’t say “It’s smaller than I imagined” or they’ll set the druids on you.

By: Kieran

Kieran — Tue, 30 Dec 2014 20:32:21 +0000

Absolutely brilliant, a friend from Salisbury shared this and now I’m hooked. Glad you got to visit somewhere that’s not London too. I also have Jamaican family, visit a fair few film festivals but have a rubbish accent that’s almost northern. Did you manage to get up the midlands at all? Apologies, i’ll stop waffling, looking forward to the next part!

By: Ben

Ben — Tue, 30 Dec 2014 19:31:16 +0000

I miss Salisbury now!

It been a while since I was out in there, but I fondly remember the Wyndham Arms, Royal George, Anchor and Hope, and the Old Ale House. Great pubs well worth a visit!

If you want to try something utterly English have a go at Bell Ringing while you’re over.

By: Hilary Moulsdale

Hilary Moulsdale — Tue, 30 Dec 2014 18:35:57 +0000

You must see a film at the Odeon-the cinema foyer is like Harry Potter’s great hall in Hogwarts (it’s a medieval building).
Don’t listen to anything negative about Stonehenge-it’s absolutely incredible!
Come to Alderbury and visit the Green Dragon pub-Dickens stayed there and noone’s ever asked anyone to call them a dirty c-word. Not that I’ve ever heard anyway.