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Café Royal

The name ‘Café Royal‘ is synonymous with opulence and conjures up images of over-the-top Victorian decadence. Just the sort of place for us you might think. The epicentre of London fashion and the world’s finest wine cellar. Again, just the sort of place for us. It was the place to be seen by the likes of Noël Coward, Brigitte Bardot and Oscar Wilde. Once again, just the sort of place for us. Except this Café Royal is not in London, it’s in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Normally Newcastle is but a momentary pause as we make our way south on the London train. On this occasion, however, it was our destination, or rather a transit stop on our way to Amsterdam. This post and the previous post on the Winkel are not in correct chronological order. Why? Just because!

Posh tea

We had an hour or so to kill and decided, since it was almost scone o’clock, that we should explore the city a little in the hope of finding one. We wandered up towards, what looks like Nelson’s column, but is in fact the Grey’s monument. It commemorates the passing of the Great Reform Act of 1832 by Prime Minister of the time, Earl Grey. Of course. we all know that the real reason for the monument is because the very same Earl Grey invented posh tea. Run of the mill Reform Acts can’t hold a candle to posh tea after all.

To our surprise we found this part of the city very nice indeed. It was bustling with people going about their business, it sported lots of fine architecture and had a nice cosmopolitan feel to it.  “It’s a canny toon” as the local Geordies would say! Perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised but we were … pleasantly!

Internal view of the Café Royal in Newcastle upon TyneThis Café Royal is close by the monument so we thought we would give it a try. However, any grandiose ideas of lush opulence were dashed on the jagged rocks of expectation as soon as we entered. This place is modern but not unpleasantly so. Nice, but not in the way we had anticipated. It’s owned by the Sir John Fitzgerald group, a family run business established in the 1850s and still going strong. It owns lots of pubs and restaurants in the area.

The system

Scones at the Café Royal in Newcastle upon Tyne

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What’s in a vote?

Earl Grey’s Great Reform Act of 1832 was in  response to widespread criticism of the electoral system. MPs, in some areas, could be elected on just a handful of votes. It laid the foundations for male suffrage even though that would take many more years to become a reality.

Scuplture near the Café Royal in Newcastle upon Tyne
Man with Potential Selves by Sean Henry

Nowadays all men and women have the vote, however, in GB, some votes are worth much more than others. Great Britain is formed of two countries yet voting in Scotland is pointless. If no one voted at all it would make no difference whatsoever. For example, if every Scottish MP was of one voice on a subject of interest to Scotland, it would be overturned at Westminster even if 483 English MPs didn’t even bother to get out of bed. Scotland, from that point of view, is disenfranchised. We have a government we didn’t vote for and now we are being taken out of the EU against Scotland’s wishes and interests.

In 1644 Newcastle was occupied by a Scottish army where they held Charles I prisoner. Perhaps it is time for something similar?

NE1 5AW      tel: 0191 231 3000         Café Royal