EDitorial ± 26-Feb-2007

Guess Where Ipswich

It started innocently enough. Brief email arrived on Tina Turner's birthday from an online acquaintance, saying "Do consider joining Guess Where Ipswich and posting some of your own."

Off came one sock and in went one toe, and it felt good, like home. A series of snaps snapped in The Town with the simple proposition of identifying the location. What could be simpler for a simple local chap like me? I got one or two straight off, as I'd expect. Others I knew but couldn't exactly place. Still more were a puzzle wrapped in an enigma deep within Chantry.

Wasn't long before I'd assembled my very own set of entries, themed around the notes Do-Re-Mi:

  • Do from Dog's Head Street
  • Re from The Regent
  • Mi from Live At The Mill
  • etc.

Great fun watching the guesses roll in, all of the opening collection being id-ed in the first couple of days save for the "Fa" from Fat Bob's Tattoo Emporium. And that went soon after too. Then came set 2, set 3, and so on. That good an idea must be milked dry and flogged hard.

Three months later and I remain much like one of those suckers on the latest NHS quit smoking posters -- I am hooked, visiting several times a day:

The rush you feel when you visit GWI is not pleasure, but simply the relief of satisfying a craving.

Much of Saturday was spent in town on the pretext of paying in cheques, buying bin bags, blah de blah. Actually, in between these vital micro tasks, I was searching for (a) a weathervane near Christchurch Park, (b) an art deco rooftop ornament, (c) an unadorned flagpole and (d) a dental surgery with an arched window. (All of which I found, yielding a Henman-esque clenching of fists.) And merrily pointing and clicking my own pocket Canon.

Now, my next set to be uploaded is based around ... well, wait and see, but it's a cracker. So that's Guess Where Ipswich: I couldn't give it up tomorrow.