I've never seen The Wolf of Wall Street

I used to work with a guy called Joe who said he had never seen Star Wars (and, presumably, neither its sequels and prequels), which he mentioned about once a week (like me saying I have no TV), and it became a thing (almost a cliché). The thing with a thing is, it becomes consuming, and you have to keep it up. He could never see Star Wars, ever. He couldn’t see it once and say, I didn’t watch Star Wars for the first 35 years of my life, then I watched it. I mean, that’s not bad actually, not watching it for 35 years, but not as good as being able to say you’d never watched it.

It would be like being an alcoholic falling off the wagon: I didn't touch a drink for 35 years, then I did, and got raging drunk – Joe's equivalent would be binging on all nine Star Wars films one Saturday night. And, like an alcoholic, the temptation is always there – in the supermarket, the off licence. In Joe's case, Star Wars, on TV, online, in the supermarket, the charity shop. I know how Joe feels: Wolf of Wall Street is free to watch on Prime*, so it’s right there. I could watch it and not even tell anyone I’ve seen it.

It was a boast, implying he had no time for such things, that he had better taste, a kind of moral high ground — he's better than you or me; though he wasn’t, he was as mainstream as anyone else. It came across as a bit pretentious: he could almost be saying I haven’t seen Star Wars but I have seen Werckmeister Harmonies, but I doubt he'd ever watched any foreign films. I actually felt sorry for him, and there was a slight tinge of sadness in his voice, as if he was deprived, as if it was inevitable he had never seen Star Wars and never would.

I've Never Seen Star Wars is apparently also a comedy talk show on Radio 4 and a TV programme. The concept came from creator Bill Dare, who had never seen Star Wars. The format of the show is to have guests try out new experiences, such as actor Nigel Havers watching The Simpsons, getting a tattoo, eating a MacDonald's and listening to The Smith Hatful of Hollow – you know, stuff the rest of the planet does on a daily basis.

The Guardian also have a regular film column, The classic film I've never seen.... (insert classic film from Chinatown to The Shawshank Redemption).

It may not be a classic but I have never seen The Wolf of Wall Street but also, I haven't liked any Scorsese film since Goodfellas in 1990, and haven't seen a lot of them. Now, I tell people I haven't seen Wolf of Wall Street and they're like, Why Not? And I have to say I really don’t approve of hedonism or money or late-period Scorsese, and perhaps sound more pretentious than Joe. No one ever asked Joe why he'd never seen Star Wars. It was just greeted with quiet awe. Or indifference.

Most Scorsese post-Goodfellas, from Casino onwards and continuing with Cape Fear, Bringing out the Dead, Shutter Island and The Irishman, amongst others, feel like insincere Scorsese parodies of himself. It happens to us all, with age. Robert de Niro has done a similar thing with his latter acting career.

I thought I’d always love Scorsese films; it was Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and The King of Comedy which got me into cinema. But unlike, say, football, where a fan will follow their team through thick and thin, I feel no such loyalty to Marty when he makes such clunkers as Hugo.

Killers of the Flower Moon, the new Scorsese flick currently in production, a crime film starring DiCaprio and De Niro (or DeCapriNiro – they should be a coffee, right?), does not, unsurprisingly, excite me at all.

*I avoided The Wolf of Wall Street one more night recently by watching Happy as Lazzaro on Amazon Prime, an extraordinary Italian film from 2019. What starts off as an Italian neo-realist film in the style of Tree of Wooden Clogs turns into a time-travelling slice of magical realism, with hints of The Village.

Bus pass

"Riding on city buses for a hobby is sad*"

– Belle and Sebastian, The State I Am In

*But in Cornwall it's fun!

When it dawned upon me how much I'd save on a bus pass as compared to daily tickets (day return from Pool to Redruth = £9 vs. weekly (7 day) bus pass for the whole of Cornwall = £28), it was a no-brainer, and even at weekends I would sometimes take the bus for fun, despite, or because of, the journey always taking longer than cycling, and sometimes taking longer than walking. Nevertheless, the joy of being able to take eight buses in a day (which I did one Saturday) and it not costing about £46 but just being part of my weekly bus pass, was immense.

The bus pass completed the full-set of Cornwall passes it had taken me almost a year to accumulate: annual locals' passes for the Tate Gallery St Ives (£5 – the best of the lot), Wheal Martin, Eden Project and the Lost Gardens of Heligan. Not forgetting the Merlin Cinema Magic Discount Card and the Devon and Cornwall Railcard – only £12 for a year which gets you a third off all train journeys in the two counties plus tickets all £1 for children aged 5-15.

I actually loved the bus journey to work in Truro – words I have never written about any commute to work in London. In winter I'd wake in darkness and leave the flat as the sun was rising over the massive Carn Brea with its iconic Celtic cross of the Basset Monument on its highest point. They often both silhouetted against a bright pink and orange sky as the sun slowly woke up behind them. I'd hear and see black birds flying across the sky. Often they'd be a mist as the bus wove its way through the small villages and countryside towards the capital city. As we drove past the village of Chacewater we'd start to see the chimneys of engine houses, rising above the trees in the misty countryside.

(Indulge me, if you will, into imagining yourself in the swimming pool at Carn Brea Leisure Centre (recently renovated). Imagine, too, that it's sunrise and you can see through the walls of the leisure centre. You look up, and behold, you see the sun rising behind the almighty hill and the monument. Now, imagine just a bit more, well a lot more – but is it not a similar experience to being in the sea at Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro and looking up at Mount Corcovado and seeing the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue, only 11 metres higher than the Basset Monument?)

The main downside of buses is waiting for them. It's 6pm, supposedly rush hour, in the central bus station in Truro, the capital city of Cornwall. There are no buses. It’s been raining, so I shouldn’t be too harsh on the people, but they look poor, ugly and stupid, some with quite obvious mental and/or physical health problems. The youth hanging around wear tracksuits and baseball caps. Some have dogs. One is teasing a dog. A bottle breaks. There’s a tension in the air and, as if on cue, I feel slightly relieved to see two policemen come around the corner. But instead of beating up the youth who good taste forgot, they stop to chat and laugh with them. I’ve been at this bus station a lot, all tines of day and night, and have reached the conclusion that the youth spend most of their evenings here. Almost as rare as the policemen is the sudden flight of a ginger cat across the road from the bus station – though apparently he's a local cat called Rusty.

Another evening and by 7pm there are only a few lost souls hanging around. The city is empty, it’s drizzling and dark. The same hypnotic teenagers are still hanging around the bus station, wearing the same tracksuits. The city is theirs. They are welcome to it.

On the bus home at 9:30pm on a Friday night. Except it feels like it's 3am on a London night bus. It's raining, of course. Condensation blankets the windows. There's only a few people onboard. A young couple, looking knackered, the guy slumped on the table (yes, there is a table on the top deck of Cornish buses), his fist bloody red and raw. Another, older couple a few seats behind me are having an argument. The man, drunk, is loud and aggressive towards her. Well, she has had an affair with the ugliest, stupidest man in Cornwall, apparently. She eventually goes downstairs. He does about ten minutes later. Then I do – to meet H, who is downstairs on the same bus as me, by chance. I go down to see her. The same couple who were upstairs and I thought had left the bus separately are at the back, having the same loud argument. An unconscious man in a wheelchair hugs a can of lager.

Previously on Barnflakes
Flickagram #11
On the buses 
Pizza Night

Abandoned Halloween pumpkins

I’m really not sure most Britons realise that pumpkins can actually be eaten; according to The Guardian, some eight million (or 18,000 tonnes) squashes per year are binned after being carved out for Halloween.

In the States, pumpkin pie has long been a post-Halloween tradition (usually on Thanksgiving at the end of November), but the concept hasn't taken off here. Seeing as I'd stolen one from the Eden Project (I will explain), risking arrest and sore shoulders (it weighed a ton in my backpack), H said the least she could do was make a pumpkin pie with it. I've always loved the concept of pumpkin pie (probably from American movies), despise not being sure I'd ever tasted one (but somehow knowing exactly how it should taste). Anyway, two hours later, as if by magic, H produced the most gorgeous-looking pie. And it tasted it too, the added honey and cinnamon bringing out the subtle taste of the pumpkin. We had it with single cream.

So, stealing a pumpkin from the Eden Project: we visited recently and noticed hundreds of pumpkins, squashes and gourds on display for autumn and Halloween. I innocently asked a Team Member standing nearby what they were all for. For the Halloween carving, he replied. Okay, I said, what happens to them afterwards. They go in the compost, he told me. You know they can be eaten, I retorted. Yes, he said, a few are given to staff, the rest are composted.

A bit later in the rainforest biome, we saw bunches of bananas fallen on the ground from the banana trees. They'd obviously been there a while, some were going soft with ants all over them; others looked fine. I picked one off the bunch and shared it around; tasted yum.

Later still, outside and up the meandering slope a bit is a lovely-looking vegetable garden, pretty substantial, with aforementioned squashes as well as many other vegetables including tomatoes, aubergines and chard. But on closer inspection I noticed a lot of the vegetables looked rotten. Again, there was a handy Team Member walking past, and I asked him about the fruit and veg. He wasn't aware of anyone ever picking them and said they would just all rot. I was stunned. But what about everything the Eden Project stands for? He shrugged his shoulders. But what about the cafes and restaurants? They're run by different companies who source their food from outside. Surely something can be done – the vegetables sold to visitors or given to charity? Yeah, you're probably right. What if I took some now? If no one's looking, go ahead. So I did – a pumpkin and some tomatoes.

I was appalled by the waste of food (when there's Zero Waste slogans plastered on their website) – but remembered previously seeing staff binning leftover sandwiches at the end of the day. I always go into the Eden Project quite excited but leave feeling depressed, like it's all for appearances, all a sham, all for profit.

Anyway, in case you're wondering about the above photo of abandoned pumpkins spotted in the local woods post-Halloween (there were lots of others too), do not fret for it's all for a good cause – squirrels love eating them, as do birds, hedgehogs, badgers and foxes. No waste.

Previously on Barnflakes
Success and failures of the Eden Project
Notes on dog poop bags
Top ten breakfasts
Five a day?
Blackberry season

Top ten breakfasts

1. Full English
2. Eggs Benedict
3. Pancakes with bacon and maple syrup
4. Continental breakfast
5. Scrambled eggs on toast
6. Porridge
7. Toast (with marmalade and Marmite)
8. Shakshuka (Tunisian; eggs in tomato sauce)
9. Boiled egg with soldiers
10. Crunchy Nut Cornflakes

Seeing as Barnflakes is a pun on a breakfast cereal, and my unofficial motto is 'Barnflakes: Breakfast for the soul', it’s hard to believe it’s taken me so long to write a top ten. Especially because I like breakfast so much I could have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And sometimes do (for as W. Somerset Maugham famously said, “To eat well in England you should have breakfast three times a day.”)

Breakfast was always said to the the most important meal of the day*, but with a third of Britons skipping the meal altogether (despite evidence of a link between obesity and not eating it) and one academic labelling it "dangerous", breakfast's dominance may be waning.

But not for me; I wouldn't be able to leave the house without it. Usually just tea and toast but sometimes – usually at the weekend – pancakes, porridge, scrambled eggs, a boiled egg or a fry up. There's nothing like the morning smell of coffee brewing and bacon and eggs frying.

But breakfast is probably best when you're out – in a cafe or restaurant, in a hotel, preferably in a foreign country. When abroad, a good breakfast is an essential start to the day, a great way to ingratiate yourself in local customs and culture and see how and what the locals eat. Eating is as much a ritual as any religious activity, and breakfast is, I think, the most ceremonial of meals**.

Take the humble yet iconic and versatile egg. Cracking it open encompasses birth, rebirth and death. It's a vital part of a breakfast and a great source of protein. The egg can be scrambled, boiled, fried and poached, as well as being integral to French toast (a.k.a. eggy bread), pancakes, omelettes and eggs Benedict.

On holiday, tea and toast is not acceptable for breakfast. Coffee is preferred over tea. For a start, coffee feels more sophisticated and cosmopolitan (well, it did, honest, at least before Costa and Starbucks came along and the masses started guzzling down buckets of hot milk with a splash of coffee) though also it tastes better abroad but mainly because tea tastes so bad everywhere except in the UK.

A hotel buffet is okay but it's nicer to go out to a local's cafe. The hotel buffet has its advantages, of course. Mainly, it's free. Also, it's easy to find – it's usually, you know, downstairs, unlike trying to locate a cafe or restaurant in a new, foreign city (I tend to follow my misleading nose, rather than use guidebooks or apps).

It's no doubt a lot to do with the feeling of waking up in a foreign country, but there's something about the simplicity and freshness of a French or Italian or Slovenian breakfast that's so delicious, even if it's just the taste of the orange juice or the bread.

I can remember breakfasts abroad from fifteen years ago whereas most lunches and dinners are instantly forgettable (partly, perhaps, because lunch abroad is mostly a rushed baguette on the way to another gallery or church or ruin; dinner is trying not to get overcharged, which usually translates as pizza or pasta). Lovely pasteis de nata, otherwise known as Portuguese custard tarts, with coffee and orange juice, in a cafe in Lisbon. Or a terrible breakfast of a brick-hard pastry in Barcelona along Las Ramblas; the horrible German-themed buffet in Sousse, Tunisia (I never said all breakfast memories had to be good ones). But whether good or bad, breakfasts are more memorable.

I had some of my best-ever breakfasts in the United States, where I was introduced to the concept of mixing sweet and savoury, something the British have never really done. Pancakes with bacon and maple syrup is a classic example.

Whilst in New Orleans, I remember trying grits, biscuits and gravy ('soft dough biscuits covered in either sawmill or meat gravy, made from the drippings of cooked pork sausage, white flour, milk, and often bits of sausage, bacon, ground beef, or other meat'), mainly because I'd heard about the classic southern dish from American films and novels (probably the likes of Steinbeck, Kerouac and Bukowski). Coffee in the States is just like in the movies: waitresses come by and fill it up for free.

It's worth remembering that most of the planet probably eats rice for breakfast; and after six months in South East Asia I never got used to eating rice three times a day.

Of course in recent years breakfasts have gone healthy and hipster. And while fruit, nuts, granola, chia seeds, yogurts and smoothies are okay if you're at the buffet waiting for your full English to be cooked, I generally don’t approve of really healthy stuff for breakfast, though I'm better than I was: my breakfast used to consist of four cigarettes and a mug of tea (food came later).
________

*Like the myth that Coca-Cola invented Santa Claus or the big con with mineral water companies telling us we need to drink two litres of water a day (I would literally drown if I drank that much), there's a possibility that breakfast cereal makers conjured up the maxim of breakfast being the most important meal of the day.

**An exception to this was when I was in Morocco, eating in the evening after Ramadam and it involved, yup, the cracking of a hard-boiled egg (mentioned here). Egg, bread, soup: tasted incredible after a day of not being able to eat.

Previously on Barnflakes:  
Not for all the tea in China

A brief history of photography (part two)

At the risk of sounding pretentious (though I never thought there was anything wrong with that), I feel photography's always been in my blood. My grandfather, who I never met, was a keen photographer and amateur filmmaker; he worked for Kodak and experimented with 16mm colour film before it was available to the public. My uncle, who sadly passed away recently (I helped write his obituary in the Guardian), was a successful food photographer in the 1970s (I remember the surprise of seeing a poster of his in Athena whilst at school and thinking 'He's famous'!) and made adverts in the 1980s. My dad barely ever takes a picture, but my brother and I have always taken them. I would say it was travelling, like with many people, which got both of us into photography. We take similar photos too – of doorways, pavements and faded posters, for example.

Photography was always there in my travels – even if I wasn't the one taking the photos. For example, whilst in a belly dancing club in Cairo in the mid-1990s, my girlfriend at the time and I met two photographers taking pictures of the dancers, and of my girlfriend too when she got up on stage to have a go at belly dancing. They were using a Rolleiflex film camera and promised to post us prints but never did.

Said girlfriend was anti-photography, as I have been too at various times, so I didn't take many photos in Egypt (but obviously, the ones I did are great, such as this and this) or Morocco or most of SE Asia (I took about ten rolls of 36 photos in six months; I might take that in a week now with my iPhone); unique photo opportunities, perhaps, in my travelling days – hitching rides on the back of trucks full of Berbers and goats in the Sahara desert; narrowly missing massacres and revolutions (stuck in Jakarta with dengue fever during the riots and revolution for the fall of Soherto in May 1998, I was surrounded by photo journalists and used to hang out with them in the bars around Jalan Jaksa. I hardly took any photos – I was trying to make a video with a cheap camcorder until it got stolen by a prostitute – see my book Gullible Travels if you're interested). I curse myself now for not buying an SLR and taking lots of photos; it was a different world back then. The things I saw I'll never see again.

But I always felt I was a photographer, just one who didn't necessarily take photos (like Isabelle Huppert in Hal Hartley's film Amateur – the nymphomaniac who doesn't have sex), hence I'm doing a book of Missed Photos (there's something about the photos I didn't take that are always better than the ones I did). Didn't the Japanese used to say – which always seemed to me a bit ironic for them – cameras are an intrusion as they see into the window of the soul? Back then, it felt like I was living life, and photos were just an impingement on life (I always thought photography, like writing, a lonely existence; that's why I think I went into film, a collaborative process).

As mentioned in part one, I learnt how to use an SLR at 'A' Levels, then forgot how; I learnt at art college, then forgot how; I learnt at film school, then forgot how. The first 'proper' camera I bought was a Lomo (it felt proper to me). I loved my Lomo – shooting from the hip was their motto. I worked with a guy called Ken who was annoyingly good at whatever he tried his hand at, including Lomo photography. He took amazing photos with his, and had one published in a magazine, but he had no real interest in photography. I took okay ones, such as this and this.

My Lomo got stolen (also mentioned in part one); in fact I've had about half a dozen cameras stolen from me over the years. I should take heed. Like when my skateboard broke in half (a lovely Mark Gonzales board by Santa Cruz), I knew it was time to quit. I was crap skater (but liked the lifestyle).

Eventually the internet came. I went off photography again in the early internet age, and didn't take any good pics for years. It's like men who think they have a reasonably-sized dick until they come across porn on the internet, and they think 'What the fuck? Is that for real?' (or indeed women who think their boyfriend is pretty well-endowed...). Whatever talent you think you have – genital size, photography, writing, graphic design, illustration... there's a million other people who are bigger, better and more popular than you. Comparisons are inevitable if fruitless at best, destructive at worst.

I enjoy many things – chess, tennis, films, music, writing, photography, travel, for example – but not being brilliant at anything (or even just gaining the respect of my peers or being popular on social media; encouragement from my daughter and girlfriend don't count – that's unfair; of course they do, they're my biggest fans who keep me going – but you know what I mean... they may be biased) is, well, extremely frustrating. Unfortunately, lack of ambition and self-confidence aren't a good combination and don't really help.

With the internet, there's so much talent, sure, but also so much rubbish (or worse still, so much average stuff). A friend told me recently it’s the worst time ever to want to become a photographer – everyone’s a photographer; every day millions of photos are being uploaded. Exactly, I replied, there’s more crap than ever before.

(But Instagram, ah, Instagram. It doesn't even matter what your photos are like. It's about being popular. If you're a popular person, your photos are popular. It reminds me of being at school. The internet is one big popularity contest. Is it just me – yes, I know it is – but the popular photos and blog posts are just inundated with complements: 'amazing photo!', 'great post!', etc – if I ever get any comments, they're mainly piss-takes.)

In a recent interview, Joel Meyerowitz, famous street photographer of the 1960s, declared contemporary street photography dead – the streets are filled with people glued to their phones, he said. I think street photography is the hardest but most exciting genre of photography: you never know what you're going to come across. I love the idea of being a flaneur, wondering the city armed with a camera (which I've been doing on – but mainly off – for 25 years all over the world). Walking down any street, you may stumble across a great photo with a click of the shutter (such as this – which, you know, I love, but think in this day and age, with most people pretty visually astute, maybe six out of ten people walking past it would have taken a shot of it with their phone, and come up with a similar result. The main difference being they probably don't work for Magnum).

(This is what gets me about most office work – you know exactly what you're going to do, every single day. There's no surprises, no eureka moments – but photography, and street photography in particular, you can be walking around the most boring neighbourhood, but if your wits are about you, you may happen upon something beautiful and unexpected.)

The truth is, I've lived most of my life in my head (have I mentioned this before? Oh yes, here somewhere). I read biographies and autobiographies all the time – of film-makers, artists, mathematicians (Alan Turing, if you're wondering), travellers, musicians – from Miles Davis and Malcolm Lowry to Bruce Chatwin and Alan Lomax. What I'm always looking for, in a way, is a clue to how they did it, how they succeeded, and, in a way I suppose, where I went wrong in life. Just as in the film Life of a Leader (excellent, though almost too opaque even for me; the soundtrack the most accessible thing about it, which is saying something for latter-day Scott Walker) looks at the childhood and possible clues as to what ingredients go towards making a fascist dictator (presumably Hitler). So I endlessly pore over clues to what maketh the man (yes, usually a man) a successful artist in his field (Malcolm Gladwell says it's 10,000 hours of practise but I'm not so sure). In other words, to put it another way, why do I feel such a failure (in this area of my life)?

(What can I say? I have friends working in film, advertising, music and fashion; I know people who have published books and directed films; some are earning over £100K a year... I'm genuinely happy for them, if that's what they want. Most of them don't have time to spend their money, let alone spend time with their partners and children. A lot of these so-called glamorous jobs are actually fairly dull; either a lot of waiting around, or not ever leaving the Mac screen. I've worked in most of these fields and though I've been paid well, I've not had any job satisfaction at all. I'll always go my own way, plough my own furrow.)

It might be that I spend more watching my old videos on YouTube, looking at my photos on Flickr and Instagram and reading old blog posts more than anyone else does. I look at other people's work a lot too, and spend time thinking about photography and film, but get disheartened by the sheer volume and talent of it all – and then the comparison thing comes back. I love my films, designs, photos and writing. This is the crux of my failure – no one else agrees with me! At the risk of sounding pretentious again, I try to be creative every single day. I'm not saying it's good or bad, but this is what I've always done, and always will. It's what keeps me going.

Living in my head, I sometimes fantasise that my writing/films/photography/design will be 'discovered' (isn't that how it works? The good stuff rises to the top?) and I'll gain recognition in one of the fields. And make some money! Doing what I like doing! But I'll be aged 82, maybe, sitting in an old people's home, imagining the same thing – I’ll be thinking a Hollywood exec will read a treatment of a film I've written and buy the rights to it; a gallery will call to request an exhibition of my photos; a company will call to use a photo of mine for a billboard campaign; my videos will get millions of hits on YouTube... you get the idea. But meanwhile...

It feels like everything's passed me by. All my interests and passions – films, photography, graphic design, car boot sales, charity shops, old records, books and magazines, art history, travel, my paintings, doodles and writing, my impeccable taste – I just thought it would all lead somewhere. I often think I just want to chuck it all up into the air and have it all land in a different position so I can find a way forward. And get rich and famous.

Turned out to be slightly longer than brief, and perhaps more personal than I envisaged. Luckily no one reads my long blog posts. Thanks for listening if you made it this far.

Previously on Barnflakes:
A brief history of photography (part one)

Pylons in the snow

Ljubljana, Slovenia

I noticed an eerie silence at East Croydon train station – maybe due to cold weather, maybe something else. Then H noticed trains weren't running to Gatwick; there was a bus replacement service from Redhill to Gatwick (a six mile journey). I immediately sensed potential mayhem. The train to Redhill arrived – completely over-packed with passengers and suitcases. I did some quick maths: 12 train coaches, each requiring a whole bus at Redhill. There would need to be a whole fleet of replacement buses waiting for us. Needless to say, there were none. No buses, no information, just complete chaos with hundreds of people filling the train station platform, the entrance hall and a long queue outside snaking up to the place where there were non-existent buses. By the time we made it to the entrance hall, we had an hour to go before our flight. There were still no buses, no information and hundreds of people ahead of us.

We had to make a decision – quick. H said to leave the station and find a taxi. Amazingly, not many people had the same idea, and after running halfway down a road to stop one, we shared a taxi with three others to Gatwick – at the extortionate cost of £10 each (one of the others was so outraged, he wasn't going to pay, and the driver stopped. No, no, we shouted, keep driving!). We arrived at the airport with minutes to go before final boarding, ran along the endless corridors and got on the plane with about 30 seconds to spare.

Our taxi driver to Gatwick was from Kashmir where he told me it was -15 in the mountains right now. It was hard to imagine that coldness – though we found out a few hours later. Slovenia was experiencing its coldest winter in a decade with snow a foot deep (as was much of Europe; even the UK would get its fair share). I've probably never experienced – not even in Iceland – the icy shock of coming out of the airport late at night to be greeted by -15 C. A taxi took us to our hotel in the centre of town, along the banks of the willow-lined river that winds through the city. Unsurprisingly, given the temperature, there was no one around, and nothing open. We found one restaurant, called Paninoteka, and I had beef goulash with polenta and a pint of local beer. Bliss. One of the best meals I'd ever had.

(We returned to the same restaurant a few nights later to try and replicate the experience – never a good idea. There was a different waitress; I stupidly ordered a different meal, with wine instead of beer. We were sitting on the other side of the restaurant. I don't know, nothing felt the same. And it wasn't very nice. I always say never return anywhere – whether it be a country, city or restaurant – it's always a disappointment.)

The first thing we did in the morning was buy woolly hats. Then breakfast. We found Le Pitit cafe, a charming place a little away from the river. I don't know what was happening to my taste buds but everything tasted amazing (even the tap water in the hotel tasted like it had just melted off the Julian Alps, which it probably had), a simple breakfast of eggs on toast, coffee and orange juice, tasted fresh and lovely.

Our hotel was not only perfectly situated next to the river in the centre of town (which blissfully is all pedestrianised) but next to wonderful, geeky shops: we were next door to TipoRenesansa, a letterpress workshop and shop (where H talked me into buying a lovely notebook for – ahem – €18), a couple of record shops, a photography gallery and shop, and several bookshops. Retail heaven was on my doorstep.

(Everywhere H and I have been together we invariably: 1) Want to move there; 2) Think it's nicer, prettier, greener, friendlier, more efficient, cheaper and more interesting than London/England; 3) The only good thing about London is its free museums and galleries (we never fail to forget that museums and galleries are closed on a Monday everywhere in Europe, and charge an entrance fee when they are open); 4) Being oh-so-well-travelled, everywhere reminds us of somewhere else we've been – in the case of Ljubljana, it was Helsinki meets Venice.)

Despite the -7 temperature during the day, Ljubljana is a lovely city to walk around (even nicer in the Mediterranean summers, where open air restaurants, bars and markets line the riverbanks). There's plenty of pretty Art Nouveau buildings, lovely bridges, a castle perched on top of a hill over looking the city, numerous museums and galleries including a puppet theatre, cobbled roads and a tiny population, most of which seem to be students on bikes. Metelkova is a former army barracks (like the Venice Biennale Arsenal, H noted) turned autonomous alternative arty district, holding exhibitions, events and gigs. Everything in the city is within a 15 minute walk.

Slovene architect Joze Plecnik was responsible for much of the modern look of Ljubljana (as well as Prague and Vienna), designing many of the city's notable buildings, including the lovely, iconic Triple Bridge. But architect Milan Mihelič, still alive aged 92, designed a bunch of estates on the outskirts of town and a cool 1960s petrol station near the bus station, which I took more photos of than any other building in the city.

The sloping Tivoli Park sits on the outskirts of the city and contains landscaped gardens, statues and fountains. H spotted a small creature on the edge of a lake. It looked like a cross between a squirrel and a rabbit. The poor thing was staring at us, shivering. Will it be okay? I asked H. It will be fine, she reassured me, and we went on our way.

We spent a day at Tito's former holiday retreat, Lake Bled. If it sounds like something out of a vampire film, rest assured it is quite the opposite: a fairytale setting with a medieval castle on a cliff, pine forests and the Julian Alps all overlooking the glacial lake, on which sits a tiny island with a chapel on it.

Not to be confused with Slovakia (which I did numerous times), Slovenia was the first country to leave the former Yugoslavia in 1991, and saw a lot less fighting (just a Ten-Day War, in fact) than its former-Yugoslavian neighbours. It created a democracy and soon joined the EU. I was slightly disappointed at the lack of Brutalist Communist architecture but the petrol station, goulash, cool shops and Art Nouveau architecture made up for it.

– February 2018 

Flickr photos here.

Recent barngains

 Joanna Newsom, Have one on me, 3 LP box set, £1, RSPCA
This was almost a missed barngain – a young hipster (beard, hat) had the record in his hands, wasn't sure about it, looked it up on his phone – I was watching him out of the corner of my eye whilst pretending to browse a book (Jay Z's Decoded), heart beating like crazy – then he put it back. What made him put him back (apart from my staring with daggers at him)? That it's a great album (9.2 on Pitchfork)? That it's worth over £30? I admit, Newsom isn't to everyone's taste – her combination of childlike, sometimes screechy vocals combined with difficult lyrics and accompanying harp grates for many, but I love her. One album over three LPs (clocking in at just over two hours) though, involves six switching over of record sides. Nevertheless, a beautiful box set, not complaining at all.

Grayson Perry, updated and expanded Thames and Hudson monograph, £4, Sue Ryder
Signed by Grayson Perry! Found on the floor, underneath a pile of other books, underneath the actual bookshelves.

Brutal London: Construct your own concrete capital, £4, British Heart Foundation
Lovely book focusing on nine buildings in the capital (including the Alton Estate); includes card cut-out models of each so you can construct your own mini brutalist city.

L'Amour, Lewis
Silent Passage, Bob Carpenter
Crossroads, Kenny Knight
All CDs, £1 each, MIND 
To sell anything nowadays, a good story is needed. Audio obsessives love a treasure hunt and mystery to be solved as much as anyone, and record labels such as Paradise of Bachelors and Light in the Attic specialise in re-issuing long-lost gems, along with alluring narratives to go along with them.

A 1980s Nick Drake, if you will, all hesitant and almost whispered vocals, synths and guitars, Lewis was the nom de plume of stockbroker Randall Wulff, who privately pressed a couple of LPs which vanished without trace. His first LP was eventually found in a flea market, and the rest is history. Sort of. Randall was eventually tracked down several years after the CD release, and showed no interest at all in it, or any of the royalties.

Previously on Barnflakes:
Barngains
London through its charity shops

White clouds, dark skins

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Barnacles™

Technology makes us tired™
Paradise is a person™
People with immaculate homes have filthy minds™
Dream Job is an oxymoron™
Remote Control For Life™
Ants are more important than humans™
Jack Kerouac never learnt to drive™
Life should have an exit questionnaire™
Don't just be yourself™
I don't mind but I do care™
It's a business doing pleasure with you™
Memories are purchased™
72.6% of UK offices have an employee called Steve™
Only one of the Beach Boys could surf™
Smokers are more interesting than non-smokers™
Vegans shouldn't eat honey™
Tradespeople always have two sugars in their tea™
Average prices are more expensive than average™
Holidays feel like work™
Women aren't as funny as men™
Class should be dictated by taste™
 It's easier to start a fire accidentally than on purpose™
The proof's in the pdf™
You make your own luck – if you're lucky™

Kate Moss is plain and dull™

Raspberries aren't berries™
Roads destroy communities™
Arranged marriages work better™
Computers cheat™
Update or die™
 Don't just do something, sit there™
The need for speed is juvenile™
There are 2,000 apple varieties in Britain™
Aspire to be average™
A speeding bullet travels only 4m under water™
Posh people wear red trousers™
If I want your opinion, I'll tell you it™
Visual imagery is tautological™
iMe™
Accent is everything™
Jerusalem artichokes are neither of the two™
107,832,745,599 people have lived on earth™
Life is a series of ruts™
Consumers are abusers™
Haste is waste™
 H is the middle of nowhere™
Carry on carrion™
Knob is bonk backwards™
Islam means surrender™
Jesus had a wicked wine cellar™
Died in event loop on un-typed exception™
Be good to your fiends™
Drugs are God for you™
Music is better than movies™
Stay clear of best sellers™
Sunbeds are as bad for you as smoking™
Horses need passports too™
Kill time until it kills you™
Fear is desire unlocked™
Avoid notice by hiding in plain sight™
Get tax back from smack™
Wii is for wimps™
Sunbathing was invented in the 1920s™
If the bees die, we die™
The best things in life have a fee™
Snails have hearts but no brains™
Your ears never stop growing™
A duck's quack doesn't echo™
Global warming isn't always warm™
Only eat oysters during months with 'r' in them™
The Dark Side needs women™
Lick the mirror or the house will die™
Social networking is anti-social™
Bees have five eyes™
Nothing was invented; everything was developed™
Too many cocks spoil the brothel™

Beauty reminds us of death™

Relatives are Relative™
You win some, you lose most™

I like to try it before I taste it™

Like a rolling moan™

I love the women whaling™
Corrupt me if I'm wrong™
Can't write for coffee™
The 'burbs eat me up™

These are so good I've given them a page of their own, here, with new ones added once in a while.

NB: Excitingly, some of the above phrases have links to previous posts.