Welcome to the rum and uncanny world of The Grand Bizarre

The feeling of a new website is akin to the feeling of turning the first page of a new diary or notebook - for those of us who remember such things. Whatever naive pronouncements my 15-year-old self made on the first page of that diary - probably covering teenage ideals of honesty and integrity - are lost to the great life-cleanser of house moves or, more likely, damp. That was the last time I tried this; but then was for an unknown posterity residing in a hopefully parent-free bottom drawer. Those were days without the internet, so now the game is afoot in an entirely different landscape.

The Grand Bizarre is a shopping place of ideas and influences a cultural souk or the factotum's fact-totem. This is the home of what the Bizarre Tropue are interested in. Strange stories, places and occurences; news media, books, films and music; art and aftefacts; opinions on food and drink and recipes from our time running restaurants in various parts of the world or culinary tips collected on our travels; bits of relevant science, geography and politics; culture, belief and comic-books; people both real and fictional we admire. The Bizarre Troupe are well-travelled and geographically diverse; London, Hampshire, Bristol, Cyprus, Wiltshire and Devon are particularly well-known to us - plus connections to many other parts of the UK, most European countries, Singapore and the UAE.

To bring this up to date, the core of the Bizarre Troupe is in lockdown in Torquay - South West UK - during the coronavirus or covid-19 global pandemic. Not unsurprisingly, we are on an IV-drip of pandemic news and are investigating the literature of previous epidemics/pandemics to see what parallels exist and what lessons should have been learned.