Newf York, Newf York

Friday night in York and, as usual, we go to the pub. This Friday, it was decided that the pub would be The Habit, on Goodramgate. Hen and I headed there to find the others upstairs, where the walls were adorned with some sort of art exhibition.

Having acquired drinks and stools and sat down, a particular image caught my eye. It was a large, inverted photo on canvas, and it showed a 'York Street' road sign. “That looks rather like York Street, St John's,” I thought to myself, “just round the corner from where we used to live.”

My phone photo of the pub picture

Sure that this was just wishful thinking on my behalf, I laughed off the notion. There must be York Streets in English-speaking cities across the world, I admonished myself. Just because the place that you loved so much has one doesn't mean anything. The sign could be from anywhere.

But Hen had the same suspicions, so when it was time to leave The Habit and get some food, we went over to check it out. And what did the print's caption say?

York Street: Inverted on Canvas

St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada

By

Kelly Powell £40.00

We chuckled to ourselves, and told our drinking friends about downtown St John's, and walked off with a buzz in our step. Newfoundland pops up to remind you of its existence when you least expect it.

Back home, after dinner, we switched on QI. Stephen Fry was apologizing to Dara O'Briain for a transgression on a previous series, where O'Briain had been wrongly deducted points for a comment about fish not having tongues.

Fry explained that, although some fish, such as cod, have tongue-like structures, they do not function as tongues in the way ours do. So they're not really tongues, and Dara was correct. But Fry added, of course, that – regardless of the etymology or homology – in the island of Newfoundland, fried cod's tongues are a delicacy.

Next day we went back to The Habit and bought the photo.