Cromer Crab Company Crisis

The Seafood Company arm of the Findus Group is 'consulting' on closing down the Cromer Crab Company section of the organisation with the potential direct loss of 230 jobs.

Antony Kelly/NEN24

There is a petition to keep the Cromer Crab Company in, well, Cromer. In 2006 Findus started to ship scampi, to be sold in the freezer departments of European supermarkets, from the langoustine grounds of Scotland to the deshelling hands of Thailand and then 6000 miles back again. The decision isn't set in frozen seas yet, but past decisions don't bode well for sentiment beating cold financial decisions.

Theft is no laughing matter...

...oh, perhaps it is. Crooked couple in Cromer try to steal laughing gas for rave parties. With Kenneth Williams on the videos screens perhaps?

Sat Navs, Black Cats and Unscheduled Bus Snags

Summer is always a bit of a short news season, perhaps even more so in Norfolk. So stories of big cats, lost American servicemen and disastrous delays on the gorgeous north Anglia coast abound in this weeks splendid Eastern Daily Press.

EDP

Small country, have satellite navigation - surely the high flyers of the American air force elite can't mistake Mildenhall in the west country for the America abroad namesake airfield base in deepest Suffolk? The Americans deny having lost anyone permanently, perhaps the hundreds of miles detour embarrassment is not often admitted?
'John Desmond, the landlord of the Horseshoe Inn, a popular pub in the Wiltshire village, said personnel arrived roughly 11 or 12 times a year.' A strangely accurate estimate.
Guys, head towards the rising sun, not the setting one, but don't detour to any houses of disrepute.

EDP

If you read books about wilderness walks you will be aware of the idea of a monster in the quite woods actually being a squirrel burying its nuts. I, too, have been guilty of this misappropriation. In the woods behind Narford Hall I could swear I had spotted some stray domesticated pale lamas, in fact they were disparate delinquents from the near albino deer herd at Houghton Hall. Anyhow, the sighting of something large and black in the shadows of a bleak Breckland brook could be mistaken identity. A Black Leopard in Breckland? Perhaps.

EDP

Transport chaos? Well, in fact the incident started at 11am and, although the local road bound tourist train was impeded, the two buses were sent on their way by 12.45. This may sound petty, but as all locals know, Cromer really is a roundabout with three main arteries with no obvious detours. Still, a finer place to be stranded to consume fresh crab can't be found.

Stark naked seaside silliness

Postcards from Cromer may have changed over the years.

But stripping off and enjoying the sand,sea and pier hasn't.

Saucy postcards, 'What the Butler Saw' machines and a 'Kiss Me Quick' hats, Cromer circa 1950s. They tried to censor nakedness then too with McGill postcards, that pre-teens would find tame now, banned from promenade vendors. 

Censorship central Cromer, the Victorian Poppyland gem on the cusp of north and east coasts of Norfolk, seemed to return to pre Edwardian prudity when a collection of standard pose nude paintings were taken down at local government offices today. 

John Vesty's work had meant to hang at the North Norfolk District Council offices in Cromer for four weeks but were squirrelled away after apparently offending some members of staff. The artist  is said to be dumbfounded and remarks that the models are in standard life drawing type poses. Eight of the works are now on display in a nearby gallery.

What the puritans would have made of the visit by the now veteran punksters on Christmas Eve 1977, at the now disappeared Cromer Links Pavilion, lord only knows.

Choice Coastal Site Sights

I was reminded this week of fondant UK holidays, before and after the move to East Anglia, by a Tweeted Twitpic of a sledging slope from bracing Cromer by journo edpmary.

Pictured, the cliff top walk is between Cromer and another Victorian favourite Overstrand, affectionately known as Poppyland. I have stayed at the rather grand Sea Marge hotel but equally enjoyed a step back in time home cooked meal at the dog friendly, and aptly named, Cliff Top Cafe. I have such fond memories of this tea and cake emporium, I have a print by Brian Lewis on my wall with a view from the cafe, across the crab pots, out to sea.

As of yet, there is nothing concrete, or metal come to that, on the horizon. But, by 2011, 88 turbines should be up and running each of which producing twice as much energy as the land locked Enertrag windmills at North Pickenham.

Sheringham  Shoal, to be sited 10 miles off the coast, should produce over 1TWh of energy annually, enough to power a quarter of a million houses, assuming the wind keep blowing. With steady sales of windbreaks on the Norfolk coast, there is every chance of that.

Should be enough juice to power the historic octagonal Cromer lighthouse, built in 1833 and now unmanned since 1990, for some time to come. No such local energy available for the beacons on the Northern Sea Route, also known as the North East Passage, joining Western Europe to the Barents Strait and beyond via the Arctic Circle. In Soviet times the route, which dramatically reduced the distance travelled compared to the trip via the Suez Canal, pinpointed peril points with nuclear powered lighthouses. The radioisotope thermoelectric generators are less potent than regular nuclear power plants and were also used in soviet satellites.

Now redundant, relinquished and rather rumpled, the decaying monoliths, still with their nuclear hearts intact, are free for the foolhardy to photograph or pilfer precious plate. Photographed on a clement day belies the dangers hidden during perpetual darkness and heavy storms. This one is on Sakhalin, Russia's largest island off the east coast just north of Japan, one of many lighthouses that surround the island, whose seas occasionally ice over.

Talk of cliffs and icing brings back those holiday memories at Overstrand. The delicious cakes were more in the Victoria Sponge, Dundee and Lemon Drizzle variety rather than this collection of cup cakes. 101 cakes, with icing in the form of games of one sort or another, to celebrate the new year. Crazy creative cookery colouring.