Leaving York

York wasn't as enjoyable as I was hoping for. Its potential for fun was totally overshadowed by the treacherous weather yesterday, which limited my plans somewhat and left me and everything in my bag soaked. This morning has been a mix of sun and cloud, but thankfully no more rain.

Star Trek was good, although not as good as I'd hoped for. Due to the trailer, I was expecting a dark, thematically-complex narrative about a politically-motivated terrorist, working from within society and being all the more frightening for it; a reflection of plenty of incidents we've witnessed in recent decades. I've seen so many almost-great films pulled apart by this compulsion of film makers to incorporate twists into their stories, and, although this film isn't ruined by anything in the plot, it could have been so much more interesting and more of an achievement if it had a more linear narrative.

Thankfully, after the film had finished, the clear sky had almost completely returned. Although it was after sunset, it was nice to enjoy a dry evening. I went to The Olde Starre Inn for food, which claimed to be the York's oldest licenced inn, dating back to 1644. I had the venison and blueberry burger, which was just asking to be tried; venison is a strange and interesting meat, almost pork-like, but the sweet chutney-like taste of blueberry didn't blend all that well with the peppery spice of whatever else was in the mix. After that, I went to the Golden Fleece for the express reason that it claims to be Britain's most haunted pub. It also claims to be York's oldest licenced pub, dating back to 1503, so I don't know who to believe. Can they both make that claim because one calls itself a pub, and the other, an inn? Ref?

The wooden-framed building of the Golden Fleece was built without foundations, meaning that the passageways and staircases have become crooked and sunken over time. With five resident apparitions, Yvette Fielding and Derek Acorah deemed it important enough for their expertise in 2005 and visited it with renowned ghostbusting DJ Scott Mills. They concluded that the spooky goings-on in the pub were definitely the work of some spirits.

The Golden Fleece building

I shared my hostel room with an Italian law student called Emmanuel, two guys from Singapore who take frigging ages in the shower, a Chinese girl who's heading to London for the Harry Potter tour and an American called Nicole whose T-shirt said 'Keep Vermont Weird'. Last night, the Singaporean guys were watching YouTube clips and laughing their arses off. One of them had such an infectious, high-pitched squeak of a laugh that I couldn't help but laugh along. He came and showed me one of the clips they'd been watching of a sketch comedian in Singapore. THIS is that clip. Inspired.

If you can't see the clip above, click here

Before my train this morning, I had one last walk around York. I visited the Museum Gardens again to see the ruined abbey in the sun (at last) and stumbled across an amazing indoor bric-a-brac junkyard called Banana Warehouse. Stuff piled upon stuff upon stuff, you could spend a week in there looking for what you were after. They had furniture, ornaments, model cars, board games, pianos, bicycles, mannequins, projectors, lawn mowers, farming equipment, stuffed birds, wagon wheels, poison and medicine bottles, bus conductor hats, fireplaces, a mountain of books and a fantastic collection of DVDs, including such classic titles as Jade Goody's Dance Workout and Goal II: Living the Dream.

HATS!