Approaching Christmas

 Maybe 2013 is a year best forgotten – but at last we seem to be turning the corner. Things are at last looking better. Hope everyone else is seeing the same too and that you all have a wonderful Christmas holiday.

If you are still looking for Christmas gifts, or just a nice afternoon out, i can recommend the Christmas market in the middle of Manchester. its spread across a dozen or more street, sort of from the Arndale centre, down thru St Anne’s Square and then it fans out. Lovely atmosphere, coffee with a  rum in it, some quirky and original gists. Really busy times are a bit of a crush so its best avoided, but some great live music on every street corner it seems.

Its going to be our first all at home as a family for many years, we have usually all been working.  We have ten guests for Christmas Day lunch, so are all really looking forward to that.  Boxing Day we have to take over from my Mum who always had “open house”, a tradition that seemed to go back to our childhood.  Of course I missed most of them, invariably working over Christmas, either in clubs, or in radio, both of which took me far and wide. 

The last seven years we have been 'mine hosts;' at The Triton, and both Christmas Day and Boxing Day were two of the busiest trading days of the year.  We would fervently hope and pray for good sunny weather, as snow always turned trading at the Triton into a disaster - our friends in the media would bleat that the entire world was under a snow drift and no one should venture out. Very annoying when you've had contractors come in and clear the car park, and people are ringing to cancel!  This year we won't be fretting about the snow - it usually makes our garden look as tidy as my neighbours! 

Boxing Day for us this year will start an hour after the big game (thats The Tigers v Man U !)  and will feature a Murder, guaranteed!  We have a few glasses of wine some whereabouts the house. 

I should emphasise that these pictures of our home (right) and the Triton (above) were taken two years ago when we saw heavy snow and that this winter has been very mild so far, with a nice blue sky this morning and yesterday, not bad  for the shortest day of the year!  At least the nights are starting to get lighter now! 

Local TV on the banks of the River Humber

Estuary TV (New Local TV station) 

I've now had a little  time to dip and out of the new Estuary TV. As far as I can tell among my associates I'm the only one in West Hull and surrounding villages to bother, despite it being a cracking signal. If you don't already know, these new 'local' TV services are transmitting on the regular UHF band at Channel 8. There are stations also planned for York and Scarborough, maybe as soon as late 2014. Quite why the fair city of Hull hasn't been considered for one is beyond me, but the authorities who control broadcasting in the UK have always ignored the 'City and county of kingston upon Hull', for radio or television.

Estuary is run from Grimsby, from the programme output you would think that Grimsby or Lincolnshire  council, or the college,  run it (maybe they do??). There is precious little programme content about the East Riding, and aI'm wondering if their licence or funding have constraints that insist they devote their time and attention to Grimsby. 

The programmes are usually a couple of hours each day, which is then repeated several times - a great idea that I proposed for a radio station about 25 years ago. It makes sound sense when programme material costs a lot of money to produce. 

In summary, the content is a bit dull and won't be of mass appeal, although maybe there isn't anything else happening in Grimsby and Lincolnshire. Its not going to attract huge audiences and so won't be a commercial success, and even more so when it seems to 'hide its light under a bush'.  I am impressed with the enthusiasm though - not seen that in TV since Lex Harding set up several TV channels from the old Concordia Studios in Bussum, near Hilversum. One of these went on to great international success - the Music Factory. 

Just in case you missed my original piece on the launch of Estuary TV.

Posted on November 28, 2013

The new local TV station in Grimsby opened today. Its putting a great signal out as far as Hull as well, but you will need to retune your TV or STB first, a simple process 9usually under MENU and then RETUNE) .

Nice to see some local TV without the patronising sneers, or Hull stories being subservient to those about Sheffield and Lincoln, as we see on the existing 'local' services for Hull. 

Its been a month since I last jotted anything down for this Blog; its amazing how time flies, especially when you think you have so much spare. We just passed the '3 months closed' point for the poor old Triton. While we are full of hope for the future and a brand spanking new Triton, it is very hard to go through the doors in the morning and see the last vestiges of 'devastation'. All the internals are now stripped out, we even have the salvageable bits of furniture back fully cleaned now and you can't even smell any smoke on them. Hopefully the rest of The Triton Inn is going to clean up just as well!

With all the ceiling stripped out of the conservatory it really is amazing just how bright and airy it looks in there already, and the old glass rood is still in place , all browned and smoked. That is coming out in the very near future and being replaced by a nice new roof, see through and clear, in some wonderful new material that insulates heat both ways, so it wont be "hot in the Summer and cold in the winter" as it was before we put the false ceiling in a couple of years ago.

Tom Wilson-Brown

Owen Holness and Tom Wilson-Brown are just members of the Triton team who have been hard at work sorting out the other areas and we now expect to be open once again on the 14th June.  Not long to go now.  We have ordered new aluminium and timber tables and chairs for the front patio to replace the timber picnic benches - they were never very attractive to the ladies to sit at.  

It really is amazing just how expensive furniture and other room accessories have got in recent years; a simple table and four chairs costs around £600 while the fixed seating for the booths is just astronomical at over £200 per linear foot!

The best news of all is that we are now ion the final rounds of a major new hiring for The Triton, our new Head Chef. We shall be releasing more details soon but I can tell you that his food is superb, he follows our mantra of 'all fresh' ingredients, has run his own award winning restaurant.  He has worked at several Michelin starred restaurants, including a long spell with Heston Blumental. He is already hard at work on menus, but we shall be retaining the legendary Triton favourites, including our Steak Pie and fish dishes.   Hopefully that has whetted your appetite?  More very soon.

Dawn and Anne at Queensferry by the Forth bridge.

Anne has been up in Edinburgh this weekend visiting Dawn and Vince, and a couple of pandas, and they stopped off at Queensferry to look at the Forth railway bridge, one of the modern day's most remarkable structures,  now 123 years old.  I've always believed the old myth about the painters having to restart the job all over at the far end as soon as they have finished painting it, but recently I saw on as TV programme that this is now a myth of the past. A recent complete repaint saw them strip down to bare metal and apply some specially developed paint. It took a few years with all kinds of elaborate safety devices in place, mainly to stop old paint and new paint falling into the Forth below. The cost was £130 MILLION, but they are expecting it to last at least 25 years and maybe as long as 40 years.  Even so, I hope my wife is never in charge as she is bound to want to change the colour long before that!  Do take a close look at the Forth bridge if you find yourself in the Lothians or the Kingdom of Fife, it realy is a majestic sight and a true engineering wonder.

Pauls first Blog

I've been asked to assemble / construct / distribute a blog for some time and, after such a dreadful start to 2013, thought this might be a suitable point to sit back, think where I am and decide what's really important.

We held the funeral of my Mum this week and as her eldest son I had the honour to deliver her eulogy. The input from my brothers and sisters, especially Lynne and Pam, reminded me just how important other people are in our lives. We were either designed as, or have evolved as, social creatures  and contact with others is so important. Contact and communication have always been important in my life and I'm grateful to those of you who urged me to do this 'blog'.

But contact can often be a huge problem, as Anne and I found earlier this year, immediately following the fire at the Triton when we were just inundated with calls and messages from friends, contacts, customers and others who were simply curious. We became bogged down with so many queries and calls we never even got time to get back to those offering help and assistance. If YOU are still waiting for such a response, please do accept our apologies. It's not because we don't want your contact - we definitely DO, but have had such pressure on our time and other resources.

Anyone who wants the latest news on The Triton should join the mailing list - just send a quick email saying SUBSCRIBE to ezine@thetritoninn.com.   Reports will be issued as soon as the situation is certain and we have a definite reopening date. 

I'll try and keep this blog as up to date as possible so please feel free to respond, add anything, or just check back as and when you wish.