The Bearpit: the heart of Bristol

Why were down at the Croft for the festival, then, apart from emergency deliveries to the massage parlours? To see the bearpit back in full swing again.

In the nineteenth century, the festivals that used to take place in the area were a subject of national scandal. Since then, it's got quieter.

Yet it remembers. Look at the sign on the exit, pointing visitors to the normal highlights of the area: the sex shops and takeaways of the croft, and the St James Barton Car Park. Nobody else would, normally, visit the bearpit.

Yet on the streetfest day, people are out enjoying themselves in the shadow of the old Avon County Council buildings, tweaked to hide their original 1974-era neo-stalinist glory.

Stalls selling clothes, food, alcohol.

People sitting in the sun, enjoying a beer or four.

Even from the three lane roundabout that surrounds this inner city parkland, you can see the smoke of freshly cooked burgers blowing over the road.

If the St James Barton Roundabout is the centre of Bristol, the one roundabout where you have to drive round, the bearpit is the core of the roundabout; the bit of Bristol around which everything rotates. Yet so few people come out to celebrate it. One a year, the city does!

Stokes Croft -it looks differently abnormal

As someone pointed out on our coverage of Picton Lane: The croft is never normal, not by the standards of the rest of society. On the streets fest day, it's just differently abnormal, in a way that didn't make the national press.

There are police outside the supermarket, but they are wearing flowers, not helmets and riot gear.

There are no minicabs in the ASL by the Canteen. Instead someone cycling with a trailer texts ahead.

In Kings Square, people play giant chess, while in the grass area, people drink red-stripe beer and consume ganga-weed. The police opt not to start another riot, and leave them alone. Lessons have been learned.

By the PRSC HQ, people in hi-viz tops, both commercial and home made, walk up and down the bike lane.

No, nobody could say Stokes Croft was normal. Differently abnormal.

Stokes Croft: the street fest

People say to us "did you nip over to the Stokes Croft streetfest on your day off from driving a van round the city"

We reply "Those of us who work in the Bristol sex-trade supply chain don't consider Saturdays a rest day -we were making deliveries on the Croft as usual." People who were there would have seen us. Question is, who were we?

The white van FG80741, outside the Polish Shop? Possibly.

The car KF03DXT in the bike lane near the now-famous Tesco express (not open at the time this photo was taken), and opposite the equally famous Telepathic Heights (more on that another day)?

The car LB57TXG in the bike path outside Slix? Perhaps.

Slix wasn't that busy, while Rita's was closed. While many of the bars and cafes were overflowing, the availability of low-cost, raw-in-the-middle yet burned on the outside BBQ-d beefburgers on sale on the street corners meant that the two main fast food establishments had competition -competition who won on cooking ability, cost and freshness.

Or were we the car X258CBR with the disabled sticker and the hazard lights on, the wingmirrors flipped back, on the double yellows?

The answer is: that's something we can't disclose. Once people recognise the official Bristol Traffic van, our coverage quality will degrade to even worse than it currently is.