Saturday 13th February 2016, 11.15am (day 1,633)

Portmeirion was built by Clough Williams-Ellis over a fifty-year period as a demonstration of his theories about landscape and architecture. It should be visited by anyone with an interest in the Italianate and the exquisite configuration of the….
Oh, sod that. We all know why Portmeirion is cool. It’s because it’s THE VILLAGE, from The Prisoner, the best TV series ever made. And because this is a hotel, private ground, it hasn’t since become defiled by McDonalds’ or Starbucks or just disappoint slightly because of the fact that this location you see carefully pieced together on screen isn’t like that in reality. But at Portmeirion, everything that brought Patrick McGoohan et al to the place, seeing it as the perfect setting for his vision, is still there. There’s number 6’s cottage in the background of this shot! There’s the bandstand where they play in the episode “Hammer into Anvil”! I am in geek heaven!!
[…] District, York and Keighley.) But whereas last Saturday saw us exploring the surreal delights of Portmeirion, today we went to Keighley to buy a mattress. And it was peeing down. Thrill a minute stuff…. […]