When my girlfriend and I were in New York last year we found a great Diner where we went back a couple of times for breakfast or coffee. Well, I just heard via some incoming searches to this site, that it’s closing down. We found the Cheyenne Diner as it was opposite the world’s largest photographic store, B&H, and so heavily laden with new lenses etc we staggered in for some pancakes.

It had been there for 19 years, but now the commercial pressure for development is forcing it to close its doors. Even so, the landlord says “I don’t want to knock it down. I want to save the building,” so perhaps it will become a trendy trainer shop (sorry – sneaker store) or something. At least we got some great shots of it while we were there. Click the images here to see more on Flickr…

Last year we also had to come to terms with the closure of the New Piccadilly Café in London, another place we had just started visiting before the owners were priced out of the area. That had been there for half a century and has just been lying derelict ever since it shut down.

Well, if you’re looking for the few remaining places to enjoy an affordable no fuss bite to eat and nice retro cup of tea, there are lots of sites around which can point you to somewhere a little more imaginative than Starbucks. Remember to support your local independent shops and cafés, otherwise pretty soon it will have to be Lattés and Ciabattas all round…

…got a suggestion? Post it here…

Went to the opening of ‘Wildstyles’ at the PYMCA gallery last night. Some cool photos, and some impromptu performances too, not to mention free beer. You might not get the performance or the alcohol now, but the photos are still worth a look, it’s on until the 2nd of November.

www.pymcart.com

::Scmap online travel guides are using my Flickr photo of Mr Bing’s from San Francisco.

I won a pair of tickets to Wicked, the musical based on the Wizard of Oz characters, and went to see the show last night. It wouldn’t normally be the kind of thing I’d go to but my girlfriend is a fan of the original Wizard of Oz film and the tickets were free.

I really did enjoy it, I guess any live entertainment like this is always fun, something has to be REALLY bad before I’d actually consider it a waste of time, but the production was colourful, energetic and imaginative. The story was interesting, a nice twist on the old tale, even if the plot had all the subtlety of a Jeremy Kyle pep talk, but it is a musical after all. I’d recommend it, it was fun.

Oh, and I eventually got used to people spontaneously bursting into song mid sentence. I was able to suspend my disbelief but if it ever happens on the tube I’m leaving the country.