It's a flap, jack

In the ten years since the IRA bomb, much has been made of the city centre's regeneration; and perhaps not enough of what's lost as a result. In a city like Manchester, messy, unplanned - you get the unexpected amidst the chain stores. Little by little, we regenerate away. The last jack has been flapped, the last pancake flipped, the Dutch Pancake House is no more. Despite not having changed either its menu or its window display for the 24 years of its existence on the corner of Oxford Street, somehow it survived all that the city and it's fashions could throw at it. It would have been almost new when I first came to the city; yet I can't imagine it ever was fashionable. I only went once - you'd be unlikely to go twice - and had a savoury pancake followed by a sweet pancake. I always imagined it must have been a front organisation for some Dutch Cosa Nostra, and, like the VIP adult cinema club a little further down the road, I've never actually seen anyone come in or out. (Though I did once see an ambulance outside apparently taking care of an overindulged punter - the adult cinema, that is, not the Dutch Pancake House. )