Local News

A couple of weeks ago I took a picture of Valentino's restaurant. I used to go to this restaurant when it was Dizzy's, a regular though relatively infrequent customer. A year or two ago the owners sold up, and it became SoJu. Under this name it became an Asian restaurant of some sort, and did not last very long. A few months ago it became Italian and was renamed Valentino's. I never tried it, on Trip Advisor it only had a few reviews, though they were mostly positive.

Last night at 2:11 in the morning it caught fire. This morning the Fire Brigade are still in attendance and there is smoke and steam rising from what remains of the building. The restaurant was in the basement, the upper two floors were offices.

In my comments a couple of weeks ago I did wonder how long the restaurant would last. The answer turned out to be not very long, though not in the manner I expected.

This is close to my apartment, there were 8 fire crews in attendance, I didn't know anything about it until I saw the news on the BBC this morning. A camera crew was still there when I passed by and took this picture.